Sending The Twelve

Today's reading is from Mark 6, 6 through 13.

And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.

And 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 they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

We've got a big after-church thing that we're doing.

So uh we are uh decking the halls.

It should say that on graphic behind me, does it?

I mean, it shouldn't.

I don't care about it if it doesn't.

Anyway, you can hear it from me.

Everybody, I've here, I've here.

We're uh we are uh we're gonna make this like a Christmas spectacular in here.

So uh right after the service, stick around.

We'll meet probably right in the hall in the foyer, and we'll need a bunch of folks to head down into the basement, which is terrifying, to pull up all of our Christmas decorations, and we're gonna be hanging lights on the outside of the building.

It's going to be a Christmas uh spectacular.

So this is all in preparation, of course, for the Christmas season generally, but also for next Saturday, where we're hosting the Berkeley Carol Sing uh here at the church uh starting at 3:30.

You'll be able to show up and wrap gifts.

So if you participated in Small Business Saturday up and down Tennyson Street, then come on up to the church afterwards and there'll be free gift wrapping available, free gift wrapping things.

You have to wrap your own gifts.

So it's self-wrap.

Just so you're aware.

I saw many of you just be like, I'm not going.

Uh, and then after we're wrapping gifts and celebrating together, we will all uh sing carols.

It'll be a carol sing.

So Zach is gonna lead us and we'll get to sing carols together with the community.

This is an excellent thing to invite friends to.

It's going to be very fun and an Advent kickoff for our church, which begins uh next Sunday, week from today, first Sunday of Advent.

So it's official.

It's not after Thanksgiving yet, but we gotta be thinking Christmas.

So uh yeah, those are the two announcements for this week.

Also, one more announcement for members.

December 13th, I believe it is, or 12th.

12th.

That's a Sunday, right?

Nice.

Uh Matthew knows all the dates, like literally, it's crazy.

But the uh uh for we're having a members' meeting right after the service.

It's going to be a short one.

We've got several members, uh, several new members that we're bringing in to the church, uh, so we're celebrating that.

Uh, and uh we've got some other exciting announcements to make in that regard for at that service.

Um and that is uh our announcements for today.

Okay.

Uh let's pray and we'll get into today's text.

Holy Father, we pray that uh you would attend this morning, that as the disciples were sent, we might understand what that means, and that we likewise would uh would understand what it means to be sent by you out into the world to proclaim your gospel, the announcement of your kingdom.

Lord, we pray for our children gathered together uh in Redemption Kids just across the hall.

Pray that you would be with them this morning, that they might grow closer to you.

Lord, as we move into this Christmas season, we pray that our hearts would be enlivened, like we would be preparing for the arrival of a king.

Lord, that these celebrations would gear our hearts towards you and towards the joy that you offer us.

Lord, would you use this morning in the text this morning to help orient our hearts towards how we could enter this Christmas season as ones who are sent by you?

Lord, we lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So last week we saw Jesus go back to his hometown of Nazareth and preach in the synagogue there, and he was just rejected.

Uh it didn't click with his family, they rejected him, and he shares that a prophet is not without uh honor except for when he goes to his hometown and when he's with his family and when he's with his own household.

But Jesus, uh, after that discouragement is undeterred, and he continues pressing into the surrounding villages in the area.

Jesus uh he follows Jesus, you know, I grew up in the car business, and so the people that I really looked up to growing up, for better or for worse, were great salesmen.

Those are the heroes uh of the Rathman household.

And great salesmen, they have this capacity to just take a bunch of no's.

It's unbelievable the amount of rejection a great salesman will experience.

And that's that's actually what sets apart the great salesmen from the not great salesmen, the people who get coffee, which is for closers only, and the people who don't, is their ability to take the no's, take the rejections.

And Jesus is just like a master at this.

Uh, he gets rejected by uh his family, and then he takes this rejection and he just keeps pursuing his people.

This is the picture of who Jesus is.

So the next verse, uh the the second half of verse uh six in chapter six is and he went about among the villages teaching.

It's like he's rejected, uh, his his message is disowned, he is discounted, and so what does he do next?

He went about among the villages teaching.

It's a wonderful picture.

I remember seeing, sorry, I'm just thinking about this now, but I remember seeing this thing that great salesmen would do is they'd get off the phone and you could tell they just got rejected, and they'd go like this.

All right.

It's like what I picture Jesus doing here.

He gets rejected out of his hometown, his disciples, everybody's got to be discouraged.

And he goes, All right, let's keep sending the same messages throughout the villages.

And that pursuit, this is central to the character of who God is.

It's central to what the very incarnation means.

Jesus is pursuing people who are denying him.

He is pursuing those who are rejecting them.

He's not being invited places.

We didn't invite God to become a man so that we could know him.

He initiated all of that.

And Jesus as a man walking among us, and then he lives it out so completely.

He is constantly pursuing his people.

And today, we he truly is the good shepherd.

He leaves the 99, he goes after the one, he is in pursuit of even those who are rejecting him.

And today we see him call the disciples into this very same pattern of ministry.

As he sends the disciples out, as he sends out the twelve that we'll see today, he is inviting them to participate in the same pattern.

This pattern of pursuing even those who are rejecting you.

That is the pattern of Jesus' ministry, and it is the one that he calls us into.

Now, if you think about this, it's kind of crazy because Jesus' uh earthly ministry was only about three years.

He lives for 30 years, he's just a regular old working schmuck.

But then he oh, that's a good fellow's quote.

The uh uh but then at the at after that and when he initiates his ministry, he calls the 12 to him, and then he's just got these three precious years with these 12 disciples.

Now, if I'm Jesus, it which good, you know, I'm not, but if if I were, there would be uh I would think these folks need to be with me all the time.

Because we've only got three years here, and they need to be constantly in my presence, seeing what I do, hearing what I have to say, because they obviously aren't getting it, and so they just need to be right next to me.

But instead, Jesus says, you know, there are some things, even when Jesus is discipling you, there are some things that you can't you can't receive just by show and tell.

Even Jesus can't teach you certain things about being one of his followers by showing and telling you.

Jesus can't do that.

Which means that there are aspects of our faith which can't be learned by just watching and listening.

We must participate in them.

We have to gain the experience.

We have to go, even uh where Jesus isn't standing physically right next to us.

We have to go out to be able to glean the things that he is calling us to learn.

We have to go on mission with him.

There is no discipleship, there is just a stunted faith if we don't go also.

So he sends his disciples, not as a break from him training them, but as a way of drawing them closer to his message and closer to who he is.

That's sort of the paradox of this moment.

He sends them, but it is a way of drawing them closer.

And some of those things that you can't learn just by reading about are things like this.

You can't learn dependence just by reading about it.

You can't really learn dependence on Christ just by reading about it.

You have to find yourself in a situation where you need to depend on him.

You can't learn the stakes of the mission just by reading about it.

Instead, you have to actually have real conversations with real people.

You have to look them in the eyes, and your arguments need to have proper names attached to them.

Because if they don't, then you never really learn the stakes of the game, the stakes of the acceptance of Christ, the stakes of the rejection of Christ, what it means to share in that acceptance and that rejection.

You can't learn that just by reading about it.

And lastly, you can't really learn the value of the story that you have to tell without going out there and living some stories worth telling.

So Jesus is teaching and instructing the disciples by sending them out to learn at least these three things, many more, I'm sure.

But things that you can't learn just by watching and hearing, things like dependence and the stakes and what it means to live a real story.

So we're gonna look at those three things as we move through this text.

We're gonna look at dependence and then the stakes of what it means to share with Christ, and then what it means to have a story worth telling.

So, Mark chapter 6, verse 7.

Mark 6:7

And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.

Twelve are called together by Jesus, and they're now in the more rural surrounding villages of Nazareth.

And so this is a time where we need to spread out in order to make this message happen in this region.

So he calls them together, two by two, and he sends them out, and he gives them authority, his very own authority, which is to cast out demons and even to heal sickness.

And likewise, it's not said here, but we know, as the text continues, that they are sent to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God and to call people to repentance.

And so we need to think when is Jesus doing this for the disciples?

When in their story is he sending them out?

What have we seen so far?

We've seen them not stick up for Jesus in front of his family.

We've seen them uh we've seen them terrified in the boat when they're with Jesus.

We've seen Jesus proclaim his and teach his parables in front of them and them not understand what he's saying.

You know, we don't we don't have a great track record at this point.

I think if we were to consult Jesus, we'd say something like, you know, maybe don't send them out to represent you just yet.

I think perhaps they don't really understand completely what they're representing.

And you can probably pick some better folks at this point.

They are sent when they are unqualified, when they're not ready, they're ill-prepared to be sent as representatives of Jesus.

And that's exactly when Jesus sends them.

So this is an essential point for us to understand is that when they are going, they have nothing within themselves that they can look to to justify their own going out.

They can't think, I am representing Jesus because I'm, you know, most Christ-like.

And you know, I'm a qualified representative of Jesus.

I'm someone who it makes sense to represent who Christ is.

They can't have any of that.

Instead, for their very going, they have to experience an absolute dependence on what Christ has said about them.

An absolute dependence on what Christ has called them to do.

Why should I be sent out?

Well, I don't know.

But Christ called me and Christ sent me, and so I'm going to depend upon him.

Now I hope that this idea of what qualifies you is Christ.

That this could be something that for some of you could jumpstart your faith because you'd realize that I'm actually sent and called now.

And so that opens up the world to me as a mission field, a place where I'm called to participate in the sharing of the gospel in the world.

And this can jumpstart your faith in a way where you can start to say, say, like, okay, here's where we often get hung up.

We get hung up in initiating conversations of faith or movements tied to our faith because we're looking for permission.

We're waiting for someone to say that's okay.

And so here's what happens all the time.

We'll get a great idea of a way that we could serve others in our community, or somebody in our town, or something that we can uh reach out to, or a neighbor who you want to befriend and and uh perhaps share the gospel with and encourage.

Then we'll think, you know what would be better than that, than sharing with this friend, is if there was like a movement of sharing.

How could I start one of those?

Probably, you know what?

I'm gonna get some friends together and we're gonna start a board and a nonprofit.

And then before you know it, you're not doing anything.

Just like sitting around, and you have loads and loads of great thoughts about evangelism and evangelism strategies and you know, cultural breakdowns and cultural analysis and ways to engage with the with your community, and you do nothing.

I read this great book, I actually listened to it.

Do you guys know about books on tape?

You should check those out.

Uh we and it's called Gospel Bound, and it's these two journalists who are gathering and sharing stories about where the church has been really effective.

Isn't that strange?

They're they're out there.

And each of the stories have this incredible similarity where the folks that are being so wonderfully effective in these simple ways in their communities, they typically started just by spotting a need or something, someplace where they thought they could be meaningfully useful, and then just praying about it.

One of the stories was a woman who moved in across the street from a gentleman's club, quite a euphemism.

And she said, Perhaps this is not an accident that I moved into this part of town, and that the apartment that I'm in happens to be in this area.

And so she felt uh compelled to do something.

And do you know she didn't know what to do?

So what she did is she just started praying.

And she just started praying for the folks there and for uh the women who worked there.

And then she called some friends and she was like, Hey, I'm praying for this.

Would you join me in praying for this?

And for six months they just prayed.

You know, perhaps we're we're sent here.

So let's just start praying.

And then one day she walked in uh and said, Hey, I would like to, Jesus sent me here uh to cook a meal for the women who work here.

To which the bartender responded, I would like for you to leave now, please.

Uh but she uh decided to stick around and was like, I'll have a drink.

I'm already here.

Um and was talking with the bartender and then spotted uh in the corner somebody like working away on a laptop, which I don't know, it seems out of place, it's not like Starbucks.

And she's like, I bet that's the owner.

Um and so she walked over to the owner and was like, Hey, uh Jesus sent me here, I think, to uh cook a cook a meal for the women who work here.

Could I could I cook a meal and bring it in next week?

So uh the owner says, that's strange.

And uh he said, we've had Christians protesting out front.

Uh we've had Christians that hang out in the back that try uh to like steal away the girls from working here.

Uh but I think this is the first time I've ever had a Christian in here who's actually come inside.

To which she thought, I bet it isn't.

And secondly, uh to which she said, well, this is this is what it's like.

This is what we look like.

And he said, Fine, you can cook a meal.

So she brought in meals uh once a week on Wednesdays.

They just cooked meals.

And it took a long time to build any sort of relationships.

But those what happened was she developed those relationships.

And uh what happens when you get relationships is you get to you get problems.

You learn people's problems, and those problems become a sort of calling.

How could I participate in this?

How could I pray with them?

And it developed into this ministry that uh has uh has seen the number in the book, and who knows what it is today, has seen 630 women uh leave that job and then find other work.

Um she realized drug addiction is a huge driving factor in this industry.

And so we need to can connect with folks that that know how to counsel people going through those things.

And this this developed into this sort of movement.

But a lot of us aim at the movement, but where we need to see is look, are any of us qualified to start a movement like that?

No, neither was she.

Okay, but what did she do?

She just stood outside, saw something, said, I'm gonna start praying, and then I'm gonna act like I'm sent.

That type of simplicity is game-changing, I think.

And Jesus calls the disciples to participate in something precisely like that, and he gives them this authority, but in order to go as sent, you have to depend on what Jesus has said about you.

You have to consider I may not be qualified, but I'm sent.

So I have a mission now.

It's a matter of obedience.

Here's a good rule of thumb The Lord uses your gifting to get you in over your head so you have to depend upon him.

In your weakness.

Right?

I read that in a book.

The Lord uses your gifting.

Think about this.

So this is I relate so much to this.

The Lord uses your gifting to get you in over your head so that you have to depend upon him in your weakness.

So our giftings are not things to be fled from or denied, but I recommend doubling down on them.

And you will find quickly that you are in a place where you are not prepared, where a miracle has to happen.

And that's precisely where Jesus loves to work.

So they have to depend upon Christ to validate their calling.

But in their instructions, Jesus also puts them in a situation where they need to depend upon Him, even just for their ordinary resources, to participate in the calling that Jesus has given them.

In verses 8 through 9, Jesus says, He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.

This is because dependence upon Christ is essential for our proclamation of Christ.

Dependence upon Christ is the nature of our proclamation of Christ.

So if we go with a bunch of extra resources, if we go and we're demonstrating in our very mission itself that we don't actually need Jesus to come through.

Oh, sorry, I got distracted.

Everybody heard that, right?

So we're okay.

Dependence upon Jesus.

So you so what Jesus does here is he makes the disciples act genuinely.

He makes their message move in a genuine way because he removes the opportunity for material gain just by participating in it.

So what we're learning here in the way that Jesus sends the disciples is that it is more important to be genuinely dependent than prepared.

It is more important to be genuinely dependent upon Christ than it is to be prepared.

We'd rather have, you know, three dependent people than I don't know what the ratio is.

A hundred?

Maybe a hundred, we we can make up for it, but with uh we'd rather have three dependent people than a hundred who are prepared.

That's where Jesus really works.

And it's the nature of the message.

The nature of the message is Christ alone saves us.

All of our hope is tied up in Christ alone.

It is He alone that allows me to stand before God.

It is He alone that promises provision and care.

And it is He alone who promises justification for our sins so that we are made clean.

Christ alone can provide those things.

And so to move forward in a way that isn't genuine, that doesn't demonstrate dependence, automatically undermines our witness.

It makes me wonder if sometimes our witness is undermined by overpreparedness.

Perhaps are we demonstrating that we are we demonstrating that we we don't really need Jesus to show up for this to work?

You know, maybe it would be better to start earlier, to start when you're not prepared.

That way you can move in greater dependence.

Now, this packing list uh of course sounds strange to us, but perhaps for the disciples it would have uh reminded them of something else.

At the Passover, the uh the Israelites were instructed to eat the Passover meal in a particular way.

In Exodus verse chapter 12, verse 11, it says, In this manner you shall eat it.

See, I told you, with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, the three things that the disciples are told to bring.

And you shall eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover.

So why does why were the Israelites instructed to eat the Passover in that way?

Staff in their hand, belt on, shoes on their feet.

It's because they were supposed to eat as though right when they were done with their meal, they were going to walk out of Egypt.

You can't walk out of Egypt.

One does not simply walk out of Egypt.

You can't walk out of Egypt.

It's the greatest superpower in the world.

You know, do you think they hadn't had that idea?

Plus, where are you gonna go?

It's just wilderness.

So God tells them, act in such a way where you're going to have to see a miracle come through.

Act in some way where you're going to depend upon a miracle happening for it to be successful.

And when he sends out his disciples, he tells them to do the very same thing.

Go out in such a way where you are going to, in order to be successful, a miracle will have to happen.

This is the type of dependence that the Lord sends us out in.

Feeling unqualified, not ready, unprepared.

That may be a sign, I think I need to get started.

I think I need to move forward in places where we need to see a miracle happen.

Next, this dependence, that thing that you can't learn just by reading about it.

The next thing that you can't learn just by reading about is the stakes.

How high the stakes are.

Mark 6, verse 10.

Mark 6:10

And he said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.

This is the first instruction of how to act.

Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.

The dynamic of mission is twofold.

You must initiate and follow.

Now, here's what I mean.

You must initiate the conversation.

Look at the way Jesus pursues his people.

Look at the nature of the gospel.

We don't pursue him, he pursues us.

And so when we are called into his mission, it is on us to initiate the conversations.

We are the ones who must introduce Jesus.

We are the ones who have the message to proclaim.

That must be initiated.

If it doesn't get started by us, it doesn't start.

If it doesn't get started by the ones who follow Jesus, then there is no conversation happening in the room.

But then once you initiate, you need to be prepared to follow what the Spirit is doing.

So there's an initiation, but then there's a following.

So they are meant to enter these villages and begin proclaiming what message, begin proclaiming the kingdom of God.

And then in the midst of that proclamation, they'll discover this house brought us in and welcomed us to stay here.

Might not have been the house I chose, but we're not gonna leave.

We're gonna stick with these people, the ones whom the message seems to be connecting with and seems to be working with, and we're going to follow what Jesus is doing here.

You know, that's the that's the beauty of that story of the woman who started those uh ministry in the gentlemen's clubs.

I just don't want to say strip club in church, but perhaps the euphemism is uh more absurd.

She just initiated and then started following the needs.

Initiated and started following the relationships.

Now, if pure if we just rely on initiation, what that looks like is I understand completely how the message of Christ will move in this area or with these people.

And therefore, I've got my you know, Christianity 101, 201, 301, and I've got these people, and I if I can just cram them through this program, then we'll have some real Christians on the other side of it.

That's pure initiation.

It's it says this is all in my hands to accomplish.

It's that trick of the mind that thinks, you know, if uh ultimately the ability to change people's hearts and minds rests within me.

That's what pure initiation is.

But then pure following is abdicating the responsibility that God has given you to initiate with his message.

Pure following is saying there isn't anything that we are commanded to, that we are sent by.

It's ignoring this dependence that we have on Christ for him to describe what the shape of our lives is and what the mission of our lives is.

And so these two need to be married together.

It has to be both initiation and following.

Now, if I were to guess where we tend to lean, like as just Denver ITE, Denverns, Denver Dan's is the term I prefer.

It's probably on following.

We probably tend towards following.

So I want to exhort you a bit.

Let's try initiating.

What if we tried, you know, bringing up Jesus?

What if we tried it?

Right afterwards, what's the plan for after you you bring up Jesus or or even something as simple as, what did you do this weekend?

Don't omit church when you're talking with your coworkers.

Yeah, and we went to church on Sunday morning.

And then follow.

Follow what happens.

One opportunity, and the one that perhaps we're most afraid of, is this next thing in Mark 6, 11.

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.

This is the the weight of what it means to participate, to be sent by Christ.

There are those who will not receive you, and they will not listen to you.

Now, what Jesus commands them to do in these Jewish villages is to shake off the dust that is on their feet as a testimony against them.

Now, this is particularly incredible, and it's a statement about who Jesus thinks he is.

Because it was common practice for an Israelite when they are exiting Palestine and entering the Holy Land to shake off the dust that they had gathered on their feet from Palestine so that they would not track in any of the unholiness, the uncleanness into the clean holy land.

And so it was a proclamation of where the dividing line was between clean and unclean, between holy and unholy.

Jesus is saying, by commanding his disciples to act in this way, the true dividing line is me.

The true dividing line is Jesus.

And so as we go on mission and as we are proclaiming the kingdom of God, we must recognize that we are proclaiming a dividing line.

And that is why many of us don't do it.

In fact, just the the just telling you to do it now as a church, exhorting you to go be a proclamation of this dividing line.

It might seem like, well, isn't that precisely the opposite of what our nation needs right now?

We don't need another message of a dividing line.

We need a message of unity to be sent out.

And yet you're saying, depend upon Jesus, get to know the stakes, and go out and be a dividing line.

This seems like the opposite of what we should be doing.

Well, a good way to discover if a question is good is to ask that same question back to the person.

So saying, Does it make sense for you to go out with this message of a dividing line?

Wouldn't it make more sense to go out with a message of unity?

Well, the question is, what is your message of unity?

What is your plan to unite the world?

What are you basing your plan for world unity around?

Ours is based around Christ.

What does it look like?

It looks like the declaration of the king of all everything, the king of glory, the king of kings, who demands your loyalty, and you have acted treasonous towards.

So how does he treat the people who act treasonously towards him?

He loves them and he lays his life down for them.

And so he calls you.

Don't reject him at this time when you have to come to him, because he is a king who will have his word.

So, yes, this is a message that brings a dividing line into the world, but don't be tricked into thinking that there is a message of unity that doesn't.

There is no such thing as a message of unity, which doesn't bring a dividing line into the world.

The question is how does this dividing line teach you to treat those on the outside of it?

As the ones who are, are they the ones who are in the way?

Who, if they just got their act together, we would finally be able to experience some sort of world peace.

Now, Jesus is this dividing line.

And he's calling you to share in this incredibly dangerous activity of sharing who Jesus is.

And this uh uh text isn't in the slides, because I just thought of it just before the service.

Um, but we see this demonstrated in in Paul's life.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 15 through 16.

2 Corinthians 2:15–16

Here's how he describes uh being this witness to Jesus.

He says, For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing.

To one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life, who is sufficient for these things?

Look at how Paul understood the shape of his ministry.

He understands himself as the aroma of Christ to God, that's sacrifice image.

He's one who is sent, his life is not his own.

He lays it down before God, and then he goes out as this aroma of Christ, and to some, it smells like life and salvation.

Imagine you could smell like life and salvation as you walk through the world.

But in order to smell like that, to some, you will smell like death.

In order to participate in sharing the glory of what Christ calls you to, then you must be prepared to likewise experience his own rejection.

And then you learn.

And what does Paul say to this reality?

Who is sufficient for these things?

I think many of us don't bring up our faith, don't try and bring others into this center of our lives, because it would be to make real the stakes that we say we understand.

And who can possibly bear that?

Who is sufficient for these things?

Do you see what that drives us right back to?

Dependence.

We're moving in dependence on Jesus from first to last.

It is the whole way, it is the whole method of our witness is dependence upon Jesus.

You can't learn the stakes of the game any other way.

Because you get to learn this kind of dual truth when you when you get begin to participate in the rejection that Jesus experiences.

Then at the same time, as we learn the depth of Jesus' rejection, we learn the heights of his love towards us.

Because where is the greatness of his love demonstrated towards us?

It's in his rejection.

It's him on the cross.

And what do we see on the cross?

Jesus ultimately rejected because of his love towards those who are rejecting him.

So how can you know the depth of Christ's love without participating in his rejection?

Do you see how Jesus sending out the twelve is the same as him calling them towards a deeper understanding of his own heart?

So you have to ask yourself, do I feel like I'm understanding the heart of Jesus?

The answer is no, perhaps you're not another book away.

Perhaps you're a conversation away.

You're a risk away.

Mark six, twelve through thirteen.

They went out and proclaimed that people should repent.

Think of what's in that word.

You're living wrongly.

You should live differently.

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

The unprepared, the not ready, the sent too soon, disciples, they did it.

It was effective.

And they proclaimed the kingdom of God, said, repent, come towards Jesus instead.

They cast out many demons.

They anointed with oil sick people, and they were healed.

And they got to participate in and experience the glory and the wonder of what it means to be on mission with Jesus.

And the next thing that Mark goes into, Mark always writes in these sandwiches, where he'll introduce a topic and then he'll give like a big chunk on something totally different that seems unrelated, and then he'll come back and return to this other topic.

And this is written in the same way, where right after that last verse that I just read comes this long description of John the Baptist and what happens in John the Baptist's ministry and how John the Baptist ends up killed for witnessing to Jesus.

And so the stakes are shown right after we see here's what this story looks like when it goes well, we see, and here's what the story looks like when it goes poorly.

And in that we see a foreshadowing in this own text of what Jesus is walking towards.

But we also see a foreshadowing of what the disciples themselves, what the apostles themselves, are walking towards.

It's a participation in Christ's rejection.

Now, this participation in Christ's rejection comes upon the apostles not because they were following Jesus, it's because they were proclaiming him.

You can't follow Jesus without proclaiming him.

How can you know the depth of his love?

How can you know what it means to see the value of his story laid out in the lives of the people around you?

How can you know the wonder of the story that you have without acting like you're sent by the one who sends you?

He comes back at the end of the John the Baptist story and he says this in Mark 6, verse 30.

Mark 6:30

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught.

It's a simple phrase, but they came back, when they gathered back together with Jesus, they had stories to tell of Jesus' glorious kingdom moving throughout the world.

Do you have stories to tell?

When you come back together with your with your friends, do you do you have skin in the game?

Christianity is not something that you can, it's not a theory to be mastered.

It is a mission that you are sent on, and it can't be known outside of that context.

And so here's my exhortation to you this Christmas season.

This Christmas season, get some stories to tell.

Get in over your head in some conversations.

You know, it's kind of like an old discipleship truism.

It isn't study that motivates mission.

It's mission that motivates study.

Maybe get stumped by a non-Christian.

You know, get made a fool of because you're not prepared.

And then come back with some Christians.

And maybe what's what's stopping your faith from growing is it it hasn't, you haven't been stumped yet.

Maybe you haven't been proven wrong, proved wrong enough.

Maybe the questions that you have about your faith are way worse questions than the questions your non-Christian friends have about your faith.

Maybe they've got even better questions than you have.

And what if Christ wants to answer those in your life?

Consider the story that you have, the wonder of what the gospel is, and consider it especially this Christmas season.

This is a time of wild openness in our culture still, or people would even be willing to accept something like an invite to church or come with us this Christmas season.

And honestly, like Denver's so post-Christian that it'll probably come off as like, that's a strange cultural thing you do.

I'd be willing to participate in, you know, an experience like that, an exposure like that.

Wouldn't that be wild?

Yeah, maybe.

Be a little strange, be a little weird.

You know, we uh I think we've I think we've spent so much time talking in evangelism about how to not be weird when we do evangelism.

And look, a lot of people are really weird.

Some of you have a leg up because you're always weird.

Nobody will even notice.

But it's like we've over we've overcorrected.

We're just following, we're not initiating.

What if you ate your Christmas dinner and you ate as though you were dependent upon a miracle happening.

Could be with your family or with a coworker or with a friend.

But you are sent.

You are sent.

I have one trick for being courageous.

I don't, first of all, uh, don't expect to feel courageous when you're doing something courageous.

And if you're waiting until then, you'll never do anything.

But my one trick for feeling courageous is what if I made my whole priority just the glory of God?

And then all of a sudden, uh I'm freed from all of those things that I was thinking about myself.

I'm freed with that constant, uh, that constant churn of viewing the world through how I think other people are viewing me.

Amen.

And instead, I'm considering like Paul, where he says, I am the aroma of Christ.

Does he say to the people around me first?

No, he says, I am the aroma of Christ to God.

Do you know what it smells?

You know what the aroma of Christ to God smells like?

I mean, we need, I don't think I have the adjectives.

It's good.

So you can know, Christian, that you, in your heart, you can know I am the aroma of Christ to God.

That is enough.

So I can move out in the world on mission, trusting that the effects that I receive from being that aroma, some will be negative, some will be positive, but I know the fact of the matter is it smells sweetly.

So what if I pursued smelling good to God this Christmas season?

What might I risk?

And don't you want a little risk?

Don't you want a little adventure?

Like, don't you want to have stories like the Israelites where our back is up against the wall and unless the ocean splits, we've got no story to tell?

Don't you want some stories like that?

Remember a sense of adventure?

Remember that sort of thing?

Remember risk?

Remember thinking, what if our Christian life was something we were engaged with and it had a liveliness to it, and it wasn't hedged all the time and the sake of like reasonability or something.

I'm bored with that.

I want some risk.

You know Indiana Jones, if you all heard of him?

The best line in uh the uh uh Raiders of Lost Ark is when uh the Nazis get the arc and they're like in those cars and they're running running away.

And Indy, he's the main character, jumps on a horse and he says, I'm going after him.

And um the lady, it's been a while, says, Uh, well, what are you gonna do when you catch him?

And you know what he says?

It's the coolest thing, it's the coolest line in all the movies.

I don't know.

I'm just making this up as I go.

You know, we could use some of that in our faith.

I if I bring up this topic, what if they what if they're offended and then I have all this relational fallout that I need to deal with?

Yeah, that might happen.

So what will you do?

I guess I'll just have to depend on the Lord to provide me the wisdom to deal with it.

All right, let's try that.

Oh this is me compelling you to less forethought.

Uh and to scare up some problems.

So, with that, are there any questions?

Is casting out of unclean spirits and healing still part of today's age?

Uh sometimes, but it's not typical.

Uh we see people healed by prayer all the time.

Uh and oftentimes I think we neglect it.

Likewise, I think that especially in the West, I don't I don't really know what it means to have eyes tuned towards the demonic and spiritual realities.

Oh just being a Western person, I'm so enculturated with a materialist view of reality that I I don't know if I'd know a demon if I saw it.

Oh, and and quite frankly, I think that there is a um sort of strategy in the West of imagine like what would happen if one of your friends, you know, if like a non-Christian friend or a non-believing friend of yours had an encounter with a demon.

Do you know where they would be next week?

Here.

They'd be in church.

So, what?

The spiritual world is real?

You know, and so I think that's why uh the demonic world doesn't tend to play so obviously in our world.

We don't consider moving in areas of demonic power.

The international church has a lot to instruct us in uh this regard, uh, because their cultures are not um so predominantly materialistic.

That's the heresy.

One of the key heresies of our age is viewing the world in pure materialism, that everything has a material cause.

Uh prayer is the means that these take place, and your prayers are not powers which you have to unleash into the world.

They are petitions which you make to the one who has power, and he unleashes it at his will.

And so that is the way that we hope and experience those things.

Now, why is that good news?

Because if you were just, you know, sort of uh granted this sort of uh power like a magician or something, like Simon and Axe, the magician, who thinks he can just purchase this power, uh who knows the amount of harm that you could cause.

But we don't pray to a genie, we pray to a good father who works all things for our good so that we can trust him even when the answer to our petitions for healing are no.

We can trust that he's working something greater.

All right, let's uh oh let's uh let's turn to to take communion.

You know, as you're as we take communion, and for those of you that are gonna help stick around to decorate with us, I I I just love this idea of us going into Christmas ascent, of us shifting from the the fear that we have of going into these uh you know family dinners, who knows what's going to explode uh at these family dinners?

What if what if you were there not to stay safe or or to make sure that you you weren't wounded?

What if instead you were there to glorify God?

How much more would you love your family?

How much more would you love your co-workers in that way?

Paul said, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

We get to participate now in a proclamation of something that the disciples didn't even know yet.

That what happened to John the Baptist would happen to Jesus, but more completely, as he bore the sins that would separate us from God.

And because of him, because of his pursuit of us, we are able to come to the Lord, justified, with a real hope.

This is the message that we have to share.

How deep the Father's love for us, we're gonna sing that.

It's so deep that it stretches even to the cross.

You get to participate, to know and experience that love, even in just sharing it.

And you can begin that now.

If you're a Christian, that's one of the reasons why this is just for Christians, because it is a proclamation of who Jesus is and who he is to us.

So if you're not a Christian, uh then abstain, but consider, ask questions of the person who came with you or of somebody sitting next to you.

What does this mean?

Make them get in over their heads a bit as we take communion together.

Likewise, if you need prayer, uh, there'll be folks up front who are ready to pray with you until we begin decorating, at which point all prayers must cease.

Holy Father, we pray that you would attend this meal, that this would be a first step in a pattern of proclamation.

Lord, we we proclaim out of dependence on you, and we proclaim, we call all others to a greater dependence on you.

And Lord, that's because you are dependable.

You went through to the cross.

You are the one God who calls us to give all of our lives to you because you have given your life for us.

Lord, teach us to discover the adventure of following you and the the uh what how it is that you really come through.

Lord, we pray that we'd have stories to tell here as a people.

Lord, in our hearts, would you send us?

Would we know that we are sent by you?

Lord, we lift these things up in Jesus' name.

Amen.