"The Kingdom Arrives" Matthew 10:5-15 Sunday Morning Worship Service

There are essentially two mandates in the Bible given to people.

They're distinct and have different scopes.

The first mandate is often called the creation mandate, that is given to people through Adam and Eve and then repeated to Noah and his family off of the Ark.

The creation mandate is to be fruitful, multiply, subdue the earth.

By extension, that mandate is often taken to mean everything people do to cultivate society.

The existence of nations falls under the creation mandate, of government, of food, of family.

And this is stuff that goes to the nations.

You don't have to be a Christian to cultivate food.

You don't have to be a Christian to enjoy the blessings of family or of government or of milkshakes.

All of it are free.

God gives all those things to people just because he is a kind and generous God.

It's a form of common grace.

And it comes in the commands given to Adam and Eve and then to Noah.

So people are called to create different cultures.

They're called to create different governments and different food sources and to enjoy all of them.

This is given by God.

And so again, even non-Christians in different countries and different cultures can create the arts and they can create different cultural influences and different foods and all that.

It's good, and families are good, and a blessing from God given to the whole earth.

And yet, sin corrupts all of those things.

Sin corrupts families, sin corrupts governments, sin corrupts food.

People put vegetables in milkshakes.

Can you believe it?

Like sin taints every part of creation.

Nevertheless, God has still given the creation mandate to all people.

Now there is a second mandate.

This is the Great Commission given to all Christians through the apostles, reiterated at the end of Matthew 28, to go into all the world, preaching the gospel to all creation, making disciples of every people group, every ethnic group, teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, knowing that the power of Jesus through the presence of his Holy Spirit is with us throughout this age, as long as he has us doing it.

The Great Commission is not the same thing as the cultural mandate.

The Great Commission, the missionary mandate, is to bring people into a reconciled relationship with God.

Sin corrupts all parts of creation, but the Great Commission is not about all parts of creation.

It is about meeting people in their uh disparagement, their separation from God.

People have become separated from God through sin.

They deserve God's judgment when they die because of their sin, yet God has made a way for their sins to be forgiven and for them to receive the peace of God that comes through Jesus Christ.

That's the gospel mandate that people have been given.

And that is not given to one ethnic group or one nation, but to all ethnic groups and to all nations.

And so the Great Commission is about reconciling people to God.

Now, there's all kinds of confusion that comes when people don't recognize the distinction between those two mandates, when they conflate them, or they say the Great Commission is about cultural engagement, about changing societies, about changing governments, about changing nations.

That's not true.

The Great Commission is about changing people from a wrong relationship with God to a right relationship with God, about bringing people to peace with God.

Now that will, of course, affect society as people are cleansed from the inside out.

That will affect how they function.

They'll no longer poison their milkshakes with kale.

I mean, that'll be right out.

And I'm being I'm joking a little bit, of course, obviously, but my joking is to make the basic distinction that, of course, as Christians engage in government and in families and in food, it will look different now that they're Christians.

Of course.

But that is always secondary or tertiary.

That's not the goal of the Great Commission.

The goal of the Great Commission is not to change governments or to change even families.

The goal of the Great Commission is to bring people into a right relationship with God through Christ.

And when you confuse those or you conflate the two, it causes all kinds of confusion.

Now, to think a big picture here, God gives the creation mandate to all the world.

He then divides the world into nations and ethnic groups.

This is after the flood.

The nations go their own way.

Paul says in Acts 17, God allowed them to go their own way as if they were looking for the Savior in the dark.

They can't find him, of course.

And then God makes a new nation, Israel.

He gives the gospel, the promise of a savior to that new nation.

It's implanted in that new nation.

Israel is supposed to be distinct from the nations of the world.

They weren't sending missionaries to the world.

They were supposed to be distinct, ethnically distinct, geographically distinct, linguistically distinct, religiously distinct.

They wear their hair differently, a whole thing different, so that the Savior would come to Israel, keep the law, fulfill the law that was given to them, and then branch out and be a light to the world.

It required Israel being distinct for the kingdom of God to come from heaven to earth through them to the nations.

The prophets were, of course, raised up and they were told to go rebuke them and rebuke these other people.

But these missionaries here, these apostles, this is kind of the prototype of the Great Commission.

This is the seed of the Great Commission.

You're going to see this played out again in Matthew's gospel a couple times.

Jesus will send out the 70 later, then he'll send out every Christian in the Great Commission.

This is just the prototype of that, but it's the first time in redemptive history God's raising up missionaries to send them out.

Now, Matthew 10 is a hard chapter to teach.

We're going to be going through it for the next probably two months.

It'll take to go through this whole chapter.

And it's hard to teach because you have to engage with it at different levels.

So at the most basic level, this is Jesus' instruction to the 12 apostles at this particular time in their life.

There are parts of Matthew 10 that do not apply to these apostles in 12 months or in 18 months.

Jesus is going to send them out again later, and the instructions will be different to them.

And in a year and a half from now, they'll be different.

Like, for example, here, they're not supposed to take a staff or a sword.

A year and a half, they're supposed to, they're supposed to go get one.

You don't got a sword sell and get one, okay?

So the instructions themselves will change in a year and a half.

But then in a more complicated level, some of this applies not just to the 12, but to all missionaries.

And then some of it applies to all Christians.

And so you have to engage with this at different levels.

And so rather than me going through this with a comb and saying, like, this part applies to all Christians, this part to these missionaries, and this part to the only apostles, I'm just going to teach this paragraph and trust the Holy Spirit to apply the right parts to you in your life.

Because most of you aren't missionaries.

I see Christine over there, but most of the rest of you are not missionaries.

And so some of this will apply to her differently than it will apply to you, and some of it will apply to all of you.

And I'm just going to trust the Holy Spirit to convict you where you need to be convicted and to make you obedient to where you need to be obedient.

And uh then I can blame God if you're not obeying this the right way.

It won't be my fault.

All right, verse, let me give you an outline first as we move our way through this.

And I take responsibility for the outline.

I won't blame the Lord for this one.

Three components of kingdom building mission work.

Three components of kingdom building mission work.

Now, the by components I mean here's three areas or categories of decisions missionaries need to make as they structure their lives to go into the mission fields.

I'm calling it kingdom building because you probably noticed this.

The verse most people are drawn to in this passage as I read it is verse seven.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

That's what they're supposed to be proclaiming.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

The kingdom of God is a unique phrase in Matthew's gospel.

Uh in Luke and Mark, it's called the kingdom of heaven.

But in Matthew's gospel, it puts in the kingdom of God.

That's because Matthew's gospel is evangelistic towards Jews that would be offended or stumbled by the label kingdom of God.

They would consider it taking the Lord's name in vain.

The kingdom of God exists in heaven, it shouldn't be on earth.

Now, of course, it's coming to earth.

We know this, but Matthew, for the sake of evangelism here, calls it the kingdom of heaven.

Commentators basically agree on that, and so we just engage with it at that level.

So the proclamation of these apostles is that the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God as the king, exalted in heaven, reigning over the universe, that kingdom is coming to earth.

And it is coming to earth through the person of Jesus Christ.

He has already preached the Great Commission, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, which is about kingdom ethics, ethics for living in the kingdom.

He talks about even the Beatitudes, those that will inherit the kingdom of God.

Those who are citizens of the kingdom of God are there because they've mourned over their sin, they've confessed their sin, they've come to faith in Jesus Christ, and because of that, they are citizens of the kingdom of God.

And the Sermon on the Mount is about kingdom ethics for living as a kingdom citizen in a world where the kingdom of God, where our king is in heaven.

And the Sermon on the Mount tells you how to live in the meantime.

Now we know in the future Jesus is going to come to the earth and establish his kingdom.

But right here it says in verse 7 that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

That phrase at hand, it could be rendered at the door.

The kingdom of God is outside the door.

It is knocking.

We went to, teacher and I and our girls went to a friend's house last night.

We drove there, parked in their driveway, knocked on their door, and we can hear the husband say to his wife, The Johnsons are here.

They're at the door.

Okay, that doesn't mean we're in the house.

That would be weird.

We just walked into the house.

No, they're at the door.

Now, the next stage of that should be invite them in, right?

Don't leave them out.

So they're at the door.

Okay, that's great.

Need another 20 minutes.

No.

You invite them in.

And so as you're reading this, the question would be: if the kingdom of God is at the door, the kingdom of God is outside, knocking on the door, Jesus says to the 12 apostles knocking on the door.

The question would be: are the Jews going to open the door and invite the kingdom on in?

It's there, knocking.

You see him on the ring camera.

Is the kingdom going to come in now?

And the answer through Matthew's gospel is no.

They do not invite the kingdom in.

The king is outside knocking.

The kingdom of God is in their midst, Jesus says, meaning he is there, the king is there, his teaching on the kingdom is there.

The kingdom of God is at hand.

It is at the door.

The Jewish people say no.

In fact, you want to talk about conflating the two kingdoms here.

Jesus is the true king of heaven who is on earth, offering them the kingdom of heaven.

They reject him because they are so wrapped up with their kingdom on earth.

They are so infatuated with Rome and overthrowing Rome and a Jewish revolt to get rid of Rome and that Jesus is come and he's not going to overthrow Rome.

He says pay taxes to Caesar, and they can't get over that, that they literally trade Jesus for an insurrectionist.

Barabbas, arrested for inciting an insurrection, murdering people to overthrow the government, they are given a stark choice.

Do you want an insurrectionist who is working for the kingdom of Jews on earth, or do you want the kingdom of heaven, the king from heaven on earth, you can choose one or the other.

Which kingdom do you want?

They go all in with Barabbas.

So when I say conflating the Great Commission with the kingdom mandate is just intellectual suicide, that's what I'm talking about here.

They're looking at Jesus and they say he's not going to do enough for the government.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

We'll take Barabbas.

Nevertheless, Jesus sends out his apostles to the world to preach that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

This is kingdom-building mission work, and there are three critical components to that.

First is the mission itself.

The mission has to be defined.

Jesus sends them out in verse 5, and he says, Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, rather go to the lost sheep of Israel.

Jesus clarifies the target audience of these first missionaries.

Now there is a pr a principle in here that is timeless.

The missionaries, to be effective, need to have a target audience.

You don't just commission a missionary and say, go to Dulles and catch the next plane somewhere.

No, you you commission a missionary who is trained for a specific cultural environment, who has done language training, who understands the culture he or she is entering into and is equipped to engage with that culture.

That's a specific training and a specific commissioning, and you see that even patterned right here, where Jesus tells these 12, you are going to Israel.

Do not go to Samaritans, do not go to the Gentiles, because that's not their target.

So part of it is just cultural.

These are 12 people from 11 people from Galilee, uh, fishermen.

They're not educated except for one of them.

They're not politically inclined except for one of them.

They don't have money except for one of them.

They're all from Galilee except for one of them.

I mean, you get all the exceptions, but that's who these people are.

They're not going to go to Mars Hill and debate with Greek philosophers.

You know, leave that for Paul.

That's much later.

These dudes are going to go to Israel.

They speak Aramaic, they can engage with the Jews in their own culture.

That's where they're being equipped.

But there's also, it's more than practical, it's a theological exclusion here.

There's a reason theologically that the gospel is going to the Jews first.

Do you remember what I said earlier that Israel was supposed to be isolated from the other nations, different culture, ethnicity, language, food, calendar, clothes, everything, so that they would be distinct from the world, so that when the Savior came, he came inside of Israel, fulfilled Israel's law, and was a light shining outside of Israel.

The best way to reach the Gentiles, the nations, was from inside of Israel by fulfilling their law to show that Jesus is sinless, that he's fulfilled all righteousness, so that he can be a light to the Gentiles.

So when Jesus says, don't go to the Gentiles, it's not because he doesn't want Gentiles saved.

It's because the best way to reach Gentiles is through first to the Jews to fulfill their law, second to the Gentiles.

In Matthew chapter 4, so we're going before this.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Back in Matthew chapter 4, a year earlier than this, it says that Jesus came to Galilee because Galilee was the light to the nations.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

There were highways from Lebanon and Egypt and the Middle East that all converged in Galilee along the Sea of Galilee.

That was a place to reach Gentiles, but it was a Jewish place.

And so Jesus comes to Galilee to be a light to the nations, Matthew 4 says.

But first he has to go to the Jews.

And this is not confined just to this little window of time here.

You see it in Romans chapter 1, don't you?

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Romans 1.16, a very common memory verse.

I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because Romans 1.16 says it brings salvation, it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

And sometimes we end the sentence there, but it's I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first.

And then to the Gentile.

That's Romans says that.

In Romans is an anti-Gentile, it's literally called Romans.

Did you notice that before?

Like it's it's not Hebrews, we're talking, like in Hebrews you would expect that.

In Romans, the gospel goes to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile.

And this has both good and bad news.

Romans 2, verse 9 says that God will judge the Jew first and then the Gentile.

Romans 2:9

Those who reject the gospel will be judged by God, beginning with the house of God, the Jew first and then the Gentile, then the Gentile.

But Romans 2.10 says that all who believe will be rewarded by God, the Jew first and then the Gentile.

This is the pattern in Scripture.

Completed, by the way, in Romans 15, at the end of the book of Romans, where Paul says, God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, in order the Gentiles can glorify God for his mercy, Jesus Christ became a servant first to the circumcised.

That's a hard sentence to diagram, but if you understand the point of it, Jesus became a servant to the circumcised, to the Jews to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs.

But what promise was given to the patriarchs?

Well, you go back, the promise to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, who is renamed Israel, is that the nations of the world will be blessed through the seed of Abraham.

The gospel goes to Abraham by the promise that one of his descendants will be the Savior, then the nations of the world will be blessed as they relate to that person.

So Romans 15 says that Jesus, the best way to be a light to the Gentiles, that Jesus will reach to the Gentiles, is by being a servant to the circumcision first.

And so the Jews receive the Savior, Jesus fills their law, the Jews reject their Savior.

That's Romans 9, 10, and 11.

They reject him, they put him to death, and now the light shines from the empty grave to the nations, and the nations see that's the one that was promised to Abraham that everyone will be blessed through him.

The Jewish leaders were the shepherds, the sheep were Israel, and yet the Jewish leaders were bad shepherds, Jeremiah 50 says.

They were eating the sick sheep, and they were fleecing the sheep and abusing the sheep.

And so God says, I myself will be their shepherd.

I'll come to them, I'll be the shepherd.

And so Jesus comes as the shepherd of the sheep, and yet the sheep bite, and the bad shepherds kill the good shepherd.

And Jesus says, But don't worry, I have these sheep in the Jews, but I have other sheep in other folds also.

I'll bring them too.

I'll get a big flock from all over the world.

But first he comes to his own sheep.

Matthew 25 is a great story, and then I'll move on from this.

Matthew 25, Jesus says, I was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel.

And the Syrio-Phoenician woman, she's meaning she's Assyrian, Iranian, she comes to Jesus and asks for healing.

And Jesus says, I'm only here for the Jews.

And do you remember her response?

Like, but even the dogs can eat the crumbs off the floor, right?

That's kind of a cool line.

And Jesus says, I haven't seen this much faith in Israel.

And healing is granted to her.

That's the pattern.

Why was Jesus in Lebanon?

It took place in Lebanon, by the way.

Why was Jesus in Lebanon then?

Because the Jews had run him out.

And now he's healing Gentiles while telling them I came only for the Jews.

As a Gentile myself, I like that.

Like I love the I love the crumbs are for dogs.

I love that.

I'll take those crumbs.

Thank you very much, Lord.

What a great promise.

But the apostles were told, you're going to go to the Jews, bring the gospel to them, and tell them the kingdom is here.

And they, of course, reject the gospel.

They want their earthly kingdom.

But first, uh, the pattern today is missionaries need to have a precise target audience to be equipped to engage with them, not to just randomly roam the world, uh, but to have people that you're trained and engaged to equip.

That's even patterned by this first encounter here.

Second, the means.

The means is dependent.

Missionaries are supposed to be dependent upon the Lord.

Now, first of all, they're given these signs to confirm their message.

In verse 8, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons.

You receive without paying, give without pay.

Jesus says, I didn't charge you to be in my school here, apostles.

Jesus didn't charge tuition for the apostles.

They didn't pay.

I mean, it cost them everything, but they didn't pay.

It's like an NCAA Division I football athlete.

You know, they get their tuition for free.

They don't have to pay tuition, but it costs them their whole soul.

That's what Jesus is talking to the apostles about.

You didn't have to pay for this.

It's going to cost you everything.

You're all going to die for this message.

Your whole life is going to be built on this.

But on the other hand, I'm not charging you anything.

And so he tells them, because I didn't charge you anything, you don't charge other people for this.

And he has to say that because imagine the temptation.

What's one of the things they can do?

Raise the dead.

I mean, how if you want to raise a lot of money fast, there's a way to do it.

You don't need to launch a line of sneakers.

Here's a better way.

You want to raise a lot of money fast, you can raise a dead person.

How much do you think a parent would pay to have their child raised back to life?

How much do you think a grandparent would pay to have their grandkid raised back to life?

I mean, I don't know if you thought of that passage from this perspective for, but that's what Jesus is saying.

You can raise the dead, do not charge a nickel for it.

That guards their hearts.

Don't grow copper in your belts, he says.

Don't grab extra gold and extra silver to fill out your money bags.

Don't even have a money bag.

Because you can imagine the invitation is like, oh, I'm not charging.

I'm not getting money for this.

Like your money bag seems to be growing.

Oh, that's just my walking around money.

That's just, you know, of course it's growing.

And Jesus says, Don't even he's probably looking at Judas when he says this, by the way.

Judas, put that money bag away.

Like, no, it's just my own personal money bag.

I need snacks.

Put it away, Judas.

Don't even have a money bag.

You're not in this for the money.

Do you remember when Simon the magician in Acts chapter 8 saw all the miracles the apostles could do?

Acts 8 · chapter mention

He tries to pay them for it.

And Peter, he hadn't read Matthew 10 yet.

And Peter says, May your silver perish with you, because you think you can buy the gift of God.

Forget about it.

That's what Jesus tells him.

I'm letting you do this for free.

Don't you dare charge people.

Well, you can imagine him right away going, Well, how are we gonna eat?

Well, people will give you money.

They'll give you food.

They'll give you money for food.

You're not making yourself rich, that's why no money bag.

But if they give you a gift for ministering to them, take the gift, you know, buy food with it.

Buy a place to sleep.

You need a bed to sleep on, get a place to sleep.

You need food?

Get food.

That's okay.

Just don't grow your purse.

And there's no rules given here about how much money you're allowed to have.

Enough for three days, that's okay for a missionary, but three weeks, that's right out.

No, there's no rules like that.

It's just wisdom.

It's gonna vary culture to culture, of course.

But the general principle, which we still follow today, by the way, missionaries raise support by the month.

You know, they're not squirreling away cash.

They raise support month to month, and they go somewhere and you know they minister and people give them gifts, and that's fine.

And they can live off of those gifts, and you go somewhere else and they don't give them gifts, that's fine also.

You know, Paul had that model.

Some people, the Philippians and the Thessalonians, gave him all kinds of money for his ministry, but not the Corinthians.

And they said no.

And if they would have, Paul would have said no, because I don't want to be in your debt.

That's a normal pattern for ministry, and that applies not just to missionaries, by the way.

That's true in pastoral ministry, that's true in you know, any kind of teaching or preaching ministry for the Lord.

I will often be asked when I'm going to preach somewhere, you know, what do you charge?

You know, I'm signed up to preach at a church and fill their pulpit or preach at a conference, I'll get an email.

What do you charge?

Like, oh my goodness.

I don't charge anything.

You know, I'm not gonna how do you respond to an email like that?

And I'll get it sometimes from couples I'll be doing a wedding for.

I scheduled to do a wedding and like in a few days before the wedding, I'll get an email.

By the way, how much do you charge for a wedding?

And I once answered it in what I thought was a very funny way.

Because it's you know, I've seen the wedding books.

I'm like, I have different packages for you.

The silver package is I'll do your wedding, but my assistant will sign the wedding license.

The gold package is DJ and I will come to the rehearsal.

And and the platinum package for, you know, like$3,000 is we'll be at the rehearsal and we'll be in your pictures.

And they wrote back and said, we'll take the gold package.

So I had to write back and be like, it was a joke.

I don't actually have packages.

And then I couldn't take their honorary.

I was like, no, you need to keep that, and let's never speak of this again.

And by God's grace, they're in the 11 o'clock service, which will not get this story.

That's what Jesus tells the apostles here.

Don't charge people.

If they give you a gift, take it.

Otherwise, move on.

And you're just, that's okay.

You're dependent upon the Lord's grace in this.

And you see this play out again, even in the in the next passage.

Whenever you enter verse 11, a town or a house or a village or whatever, find a place to stay.

Find a place that's worthy.

In other words, a place that will receive you, a place that will take you.

You know, you're not um staying in like a brothel or anything, a place that's worthy, a place that will actually receive you.

And that's fine.

And tell them shalom when you come in.

It's a common Jewish greeting, shalom, peace be upon you.

But then Jesus says, stay there the whole time, verse 11, stay there until you depart.

Don't trade up, in other words.

And uh, whenever I read this, I think of a very concrete illustration from my life.

I used to travel to Yucca Valley to preach at a church in Yucca Valley, California, in the middle of nowhere.

We're inside 29 Palms Marine Base.

I know many of you have been there.

I used to preach at First Baptist Yucca Valley.

And my first time there, you know, I'm preaching in the morning and the evening, and this elderly couple says, Oh, you're here all day, why don't you come stay, rest at our house in the afternoon?

Like, yeah, great.

I'll do it.

So I go to their house, they lived in an actual trailer park.

They had this uh sofa that was totally deteriorated.

They had a game show on at like a thousand decibels, and a diseased cat that wanted to sleep on me.

And like this gross nacho stuff on the table from like a different presidential administration.

Like, thank you so much for your hospitality.

I'll be fine on the couch.

This is gonna be great.

Well, next weekend I go back to that same church, and this other couple comes and says, Oh, you're staying at that family's house.

Why don't you come stay at my house instead?

We have like four swimming pools and a personal masseuse and peeled all no, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but they're like, we have a really nice house up in that part of the town over there with a swimming pool and and everything.

You'll be much more comfortable here.

And there's like a little war in my heart.

I'm like, hmm, the house with four swimming pools.

You know what?

I'm committed to the nachos and the game shows and the diseased cat.

I'm in.

If the Lord would have wanted me to be at the house of the four swimming pools, I would have met you guys first.

I mean, that's the bottom line.

Instead, I'm off here.

And you can probably think of your own illustrations from your own life about this kind of thing.

But the principle is you go where the Lord leads and you don't trade up in ministry.

You're just content with the doors the Lord opens.

You can see how this would be particularly tempting in a mission field when you're going to a new nation, a new place, you don't know anything, you don't know the right people in the church, you don't know that stuff.

You just have to be led by the Lord.

So you're dependent on the Lord's direction.

That's the means.

And then thirdly, the message.

Your message has to be decisive.

In the mission field, your message has to be decisive.

So, first of all, notice how the message goes out.

If you go back up in verse 7, the second word in English, proclaim, and the Greek word karuso, cry out, it's the word that becomes an English word.

It's usually translated preaching.

And we make all kinds of derivatives of it.

Preaching, preachers.

You know, the preached.

It's this idea of the sermon proclaims.

That's the means or the method here.

The gospel is supposed to go out into the world.

The message is won through preaching, proclamation.

And the content of the sermon here is the kingdom of God is at hand.

That God is making a way for his kingdoms to be realized and experienced on earth.

This is a Sermon on the Mount kind of stuff.

The disciples they didn't have the full gospel message.

They did this a year before Peter forbids Jesus to go to the cross.

You know, so they don't have the cross in their radar.

They don't have the empty grave in their radar, obviously not.

They don't know the full gospel.

I think there was enough Old Testament information that should have led them there, but they haven't realized that yet.

Like I said, it's going to be a full year from now where Jesus, where Peter tells Jesus, I forbid you to go to the cross.

But for now, they don't have that thing.

But they do know the Sermon on the Mount, they do know the miracles in Matthew 8 and 9.

They do know everything that Jesus has done and what he's preached.

And they're probably just going to steal his Jesus' sermon and go preach that.

It's probably what they're going to do.

But notice that they're going to be preaching.

That's the means that God has appointed for men, anyway, to build the church.

He's given them that.

And their message in verse 8 is verified.

Healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, casting out demons.

That's how you know they're speaking the truth.

These who are these fishermen from Galilee?

Well, they can raise the dead.

Now, Jesus could have given them any miracles to do.

He could have let them fly.

They could have jumped off the roof of the temple and be caught by angels.

I mean, he could have had them do all kinds of things, teleport here to there.

That could prove their message.

But he gives them very specific miracles to do because these miracles showed the compassionate nature of God and they showed the undoing of the curse.

And Mark's version of this makes that even more clear.

They were sent to preach the gospel, verified in this way.

Jesus is undoing the curse through the gospel.

The sin in the world brings death.

Jesus can undo that.

Sin is like leprosy.

It corrodes you, it dulls your senses, it roads you away until it eventually kills you.

The gospel can undo that.

We are in the same boat as these apostles.

We can't literally raise the dead or literally cast out demons or literally heal leprosy like they could, but we can figuratively, when you proclaim the gospel and somebody believes it, they go from spiritual death to spiritual life.

When you proclaim the gospel and somebody receives the Lord into their heart and the spirit confirms this and seals them, their leprosy is cleansed from the inside out.

They're undoing the battle against, they're starting the battle against sin and undoing the wages of sin.

You can't literally cast out a demon.

When somebody receives the Lord and the Spirit dwells in their heart, the demons flee.

You don't have authority over demons, but Jesus does, and you have the gospel.

And so we have a similar package deal that the apostles had, although not literally, we have it figuratively.

And nevertheless, it is the same principle.

And this goes to a decisive message.

You can jump back down to verse 14.

If anyone, or the middle of verse 13, if the house is not worthy, let your peace return to you.

And if anyone won't receive you or listen to you, shake the dust off of your feet when you leave that house.

The point here, we'll get to the dust in a second.

The point here is that your message has to be so clear that people can either accept it or reject it.

And this can be a hard thing for missionaries to do.

It really can.

Because you move to a new place and you don't want to cause waves.

It's not a Christian people, of course not.

That's why you're a missionary there.

And so you want to just get along, you know, find the right place to live and where to shop and how to get your water turned on.

And you're just doing that basic stuff.

You're not trying to make waves.

And eventually it becomes like I just need to get through my first year before people are confronted with the gospel.

And then it becomes, you know, I've got I've got kids here now, and the kids have got to grow up here, and the kids are friends with the neighbors, and eventually it becomes like I've got 10 years in this place, and I'm just trying to bring in other missionaries and help them transition.

And it's so easy to procrastinate the actual decisive proclamation of the gospel.

But notice here, and Jesus is telling of this the missionaries have to speak with such clarity that people either accept or reject.

And that's a good way of sobering you up.

It's a good way of making you ask yourself: Am I sharing the gospel with my friends in a way that calls for a decision?

In a way that makes them say, I agree or I don't agree.

And he says, if they don't agree, take your shalom back.

And that we don't have that expression in English.

The closest in English should be like brother.

You know, you meet your neighbor the first time, you might call your neighbor brother, like, hey brother, how you doing, stay because you're all children of Adam, that's fine.

But eventually you get to the point where you proclaim the gospel to him, and you tell him the only way you can be a child of God is through faith in Christ, and they reject that.

See why it would be confusing to keep calling a brother.

And to use the analogy from Matthew 10, shalom, a very common Aramaic greeting, shalom.

It just means peace upon you, or Hebrew greeting, peace upon you, shalom.

You say it to somebody in the street, it's not spiritual, it's just peace.

But then you preach the gospel to somebody and say, you can be reconciled to God by faith in Jesus Christ.

And the only way to have the peace of God that surpasses understanding is by giving your life to Christ.

And they reject that.

See why it would be very confusing to say, peace be upon you.

There's no peace for them anymore.

There's no peace.

You take that shalom right back with you, Jesus says.

It's not like a spiritual thing, like I said, shalom, I'm taking my presence back.

It just means don't give them any more peace.

Wipe the sand, the dust off your sandals, he says.

Again, we don't have this in the United States.

Our culture is different on the world stage.

You go to somebody's house, the first thing you ask when you go to somebody's house in our culture is, Do you want me to keep my shoes on?

That would be a very weird question in the rest of the world.

Do you know how rude it would be to keep your shoes on in somebody's house in just about every other culture in the world?

Like you wouldn't ask that.

It'd be like asking, oh, nice dinner.

Do you want me to spit on it for you?

Do you want me to keep your shoe, my shoes on in your house?

You gotta be kidding.

Your shoe, you're walking in the bathrooms with your shoes.

You don't wear shoes in the house, in somebody's house, walk on their mat.

No, of course not.

In the Jewish world is like that.

And so Jesus says, You leave that house, strap your sandals on, and wipe all the unclean sand and muck off your shoe at the person who rejects the gospel.

You're not throwing it at him, but it's saying, like, you are unclean by your rejection of Jesus Christ.

By the way, you see this in the book of Acts.

When Paul and Barnabas, child of encouragement, Barnabas, I didn't know he had it in him.

When the Jews reject Paul and Barnabas at the end of Acts 13, do you remember they wipe off their sandals at them and leave?

We don't really do that today.

Although Jerry Vines tells a story, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, getting fired from a church in Mobile, and he piles his family in a station wagon and drives up to that long bridge that goes out of Mobile and pulls over at the center of it and wipes his shoes off at Mobile and gets back in and drives to Florida.

That's descriptive, not prescriptive.

I'm not telling you to do that.

That's his own story.

But that's what Jesus says here.

And then he says this I tell you, it'll be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for those people that reject your message.

Sodom and Gomorrah, they had such a low bar for truth.

God's going to destroy you unless you repent.

And what repentance can even look like is just follow Lot out of the city.

Go with him.

Lot tries to get his sons-in-laws and they think he's joking.

You don't get a lower bar than this.

Like, go ahead and follow me away from the fire and sulfur raining down from heaven.

That was it.

They ignore Lot and they are consumed by God's judgment.

Jesus says, it'll be worse for somebody that rejects Christ and rejects the message of the gospel than it will be for those in Sodom and Gomorrah.

The implication is that people in Sodom and Gomorrah hardly knew anything.

They knew about the reality of hell, of course.

They knew about the reality of judgment.

They didn't care and they experienced it.

Anybody who has sat under any Christian teaching or has had an encounter with any missionary should know more than that.

And that is meant as a little bit of rebuke to missionaries that have not communicated the gospel that clearly to somebody that people don't know more than those in Sodom and Gomorrah.

It's meant as a rebuke to us that to make us think through are we communicating when we're evangelizing our friends and coworkers?

Are we communicating in a better and more clear way than even Lot was?

But it is most specifically meant as a rebuke for somebody who thinks they can reject the gospel and still be okay with God.

And this describes the power of hell.

Fire and sulfur consuming people.

And Jesus says if you reject the gospel, it is worse for you than that.

So notice the disciples preached a decisive message.

And it is worth asking you.

If you're here today and you are not a Christian, you have heard more of a message than those in Sodom and Gomorrah.

You have more knowledge of the truth.

Those in Sodom and Gomorrah, they didn't know about the cross.

They didn't know that Jesus led a sinless life and died on the cross, bearing the penalty for sin.

They didn't know that.

They didn't know that he rose from the grave on the third day and that the grave is empty at this very moment.

They have no idea about that.

And that they were judged by God.

You know more than that.

So it's worth asking yourself.

You know more than those people who are judged by God.

Do you have any knowledge of God's peace?

The only way you can know the shalom of God is through Jesus Christ.

Do you have any knowledge of what it means to be in the family of God?

The only way you can be a brother or sister to the Lord is through faith in Christ.

Do you have any hope of standing before God for judgment?

The only way you have hope is through faith in Jesus Christ.

If you're a Christian here today, I hope this message might provoke you to think about the mission field.

Matthew 9, just six verses before this, Jesus says the harvest is plenty, the workers are few.

Harvest is an idiom for judgment.

God is going to judge the nations with a sickle, and he's going to cast the wheat into heaven and the tares into the fires of hell.

That's coming.

He wishes there were more workers to work the field.

If you're as a Christian, I hope your idea and your conscience is at least open to that.

Some of you can go to the mission field directly, some of you can go indirectly through praying for missionaries and giving for missionaries.

But if you're here today and you're not a Christian, the even more basic question The only way you have access to the peace of God is through placing your faith in Jesus Christ.

God, we're grateful that your message has gone to the world through the apostles first, and through 70, and then through 120 in Acts, and now through every believer.

I pray that we would indeed be a light to the nations.

And those people in far-off places would hear about the gospel.

I pray for those in our own midst that have never given their life to you.

We pray today that our hearts will be open to the truth of Christ.

And we ask this in his name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.