It's good to be in your midst again. I would invite you to turn with me in your Bibles back to Matthew chapter 10. Matthew chapter 10, tonight we'll be looking at verses 5 to 15. Hear now the word of the Lord. These 12, Jesus sent out instructing them, go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim as you go saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse leopards, cast out demons. You received without paying. Give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or staff. The labor deserves his food. For whatever town or village you enter, Find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. Amen. And this ends this reading of God's holy, inspired, and inerrant word. May he add his blessing to us this evening. Well, Matthew chapter 10 outlines what it means to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. This morning we saw that the first mark of a disciple is someone who has been called by Jesus Christ. We see this in the calling and the commissioning of the 12 apostles. Using the 12 disciples then as a model, we learned that a disciple is a lifelong student of Jesus. That is, someone who is called by Christ, whose identity is defined by a relationship with Jesus Christ. A disciple, in other words, is someone who follows Jesus Christ, whose focal point in life is the Lord Jesus. Well, not only does Jesus call ordinary men and women to be his disciples, We discover here in this text he also sends us on his mission. Perhaps you've sometimes wondered, why doesn't God immediately glorify the saints upon justification? Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't it be glorious not to suffer what this world presents? Disappointment, heartache, and sin, and failure. Why doesn't God glorify us immediately upon justification? Well, one answer to that question is that Jesus has work for us to do. He has a mission for us to accomplish. And so in the first place we see this evening in verses five to six is the mission of the disciples. Look again in verse five. These 12 Jesus sent out instructing them, go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. What's interesting is that Matthew actually does not record anything about the trip. The disciples have just been sent on a short-term mission project, a summer mission trip, we might even say. But we have no details or record of actually what transpired, at least here. The only thing we have are the instructions that Jesus gives his disciple. Their mission is to continue the mission of Jesus. As the Father sent me, so I send you. That is, the work of the disciple is to continue the mission of Jesus. Now this word for instructing in verse five has a military overtone. It's often used for a commanding officer who will give an order to a soldier under his command. The word conveys a sense of authority. Jesus, as the commander, as the head of the church, says, go. To use the language of Joshua 5, 14, Jesus here is the commander of the Lord's army. He tells his disciples to go, and they go out of a sense of duty and allegiance to their commanding officer. So it is the same for us today. As followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are called to serve out of a sense of loyalty to Jesus as the commander in chief. We gather today on the Lord's Day out of obedience to Christ as head of the church. We march to the beat of his drum. We follow his orders. And so the orders the disciples have been given here are very specific. These disciples have no right to amend the orders to their liking. They must carry out the mission that their commander has given them. Without reservation, without change or alteration, they are to obey. Furthermore, concerning the tactics of their mission, at least in this point in redemptive history, Jesus tells his disciples not to focus their energies on the Samaritans and the Gentiles, but rather to focus the energy of their discipleship ministry on the lost sheep of Israel. Now, we understand there will come a time when Jesus says to go beyond the boundaries of Israel. Even at the end of Matthew's Gospel and the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 19, Jesus will say, go and make disciples of all nations. In Acts chapter 1, verse 8, we see a table of contents of the early church where the disciples go from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the far corners of the earth. And Paul, in Romans 1, verses 16 and 17, says that the gospel goes to the Jews first, and then from there it goes beyond to the Gentiles. So we know at some point we're going to get to worldwide missions, but not yet. Now the disciples are called to focus their energies on their own house. They have to get their house in order. before they go and spread the good news to the Samaritans and to the Gentiles. Your first responsibility, your first order, your first command is to care for those that God has entrusted to you within your own house. So rather than spread their efforts thin, they are to concentrate their efforts in the region of Galilee in order to reach the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This is, again, an allusion back to the end of chapter nine, where Jesus has concern for Israel, that they are wandering around like a sheep without a shepherd, and out of his mercy and kindness and wisdom, he gives to them the disciples. And now he tells the disciples, you have to care for Israel, who are wandering around like lost sheep. You are my under-shepherds, and your job is to care for my people. Now this phrase, the lost sheep of Israel, is a clear echo of Ezekiel chapter 34, a remarkable chapter where Yahweh is the covenant Lord of Israel, comes down himself to shepherd the flock of Israel. The priests, the kings of Israel, the leaders of Israel had abdicated their responsibility, and so Yahweh steps in and shepherds Israel. Ezekiel 34 verse 30 is absolutely breathtaking here. The prophet says this, and they shall know that I am the Lord their God with them, and they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord. And so, the disciples are commissioned to care for the lost sheep in many ways in application of the principle of Ezekiel 34. We see that the commission of the disciples is an extension of the mission of Jesus as the good shepherd who will care for his own. So, Matthew 15, verse 24, Jesus uses this same phrase to describe the charge he has been given by his heavenly father to rescue the, quote, lost sheep of the house of Israel. You see, Israel, as the chosen flock of God, had strayed away from the green pastures and still waters of sound biblical teaching. They'd taken for granted their wonderful heritage as the people of God. And so Jesus, as the good shepherd, comes to seek and save that which is lost. And yet, sadly, the sheep wanted nothing to do with the shepherd. And sometimes that is the case in believing homes and in biblical churches. There are some sheep who grow tired of the voice of the Good Shepherd and want nothing to do with him. And as the people of God, we have a responsibility to care for those on the margins within our own communities who yawn in the face of the Good Shepherd. Indeed, Matthew tells us in chapter 27, verse 9, that it was the sons of Israel who put a price on the head of Jesus and sought to kill him. Likewise, the Apostle Peter picks up this theme in his sermon at Pentecost when he courageously tells the house of Israel that it was they who had crucified Jesus. And so in Acts chapter 2 verse 36, Jesus says, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified. We recognize that ministry begins within the house of God. And to keep us from thinking too highly of ourselves, We are somehow immune from the criticism that God levels against Israel. Scripture tells us that it's not only Israel who rejected the shepherd. But as Isaiah 53 verse 6 states, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every single one to his own way. But the Lord has laid on him, that is the suffering servant, the iniquity of us all. You see, the good news of the gospel is that the good shepherd came to give his life for lost sheep. And our job as disciples is to tell the lost sheep where they can find the good shepherd. It's our job. This verb here, go, is continuous. We aren't to give up on the lost sheep. We are to continue going to the lost sheep. Oh, parents, one of the most important responsibilities you have is never to give up on your children, perhaps even those children who have wandered from the faith. My late father was really one of the most godly men I have ever known, but there was a time when he did not name the name of Jesus Christ. He grew up in a Christian home. He was essentially an agnostic, spent his career in engineering, but in many ways just denied the faith. His mother was a good Dutch Reformed woman from New York, and she would, I never got to know my paternal grandmother, but by all accounts, she was a remarkable woman, and every single day, she prayed for my father's conversion. That was a prayer that she never saw answered, but it was a prayer that was answered in her own death. My father's brother, who is also no longer living, was an ordained minister of the gospel. His older brother, And his older brother preached their mother's funeral. And there in that sermon, my father was converted and his mother's prayers were answered. Parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, family members, do not give up on your children, on your grandchildren. on your siblings, on your family members. Pray down the blessings of heaven upon them. Take every opportunity to point them to Jesus Christ. And yet friends, this application doesn't only apply to your families, it certainly applies to this congregation. One of the most important ministries of this congregation is to reach out to those from your midst who are inactive. There are any number of reasons why someone drops from attendance in a faithful biblical congregation like this one. We can't presume on all the reasons why people sometimes just simply fade away. Perhaps sometimes they've moved away and they've forgotten to let us know. Or at the very least, wouldn't you like to send them a card and say, hey, I'm praying for you? Maybe they've transferred to another church. Maybe they've denied the faith. Maybe they're just simply facing trial and tribulation. And they're simply too embarrassed or overwhelmed to face the people they love in this church. Maybe they're no longer here because they've been hurt by someone in this congregation. And simply crossing the threshold of a church just stirs up old memories and old wounds. Or maybe someone is just simply waiting to hear from you, and it just takes a phone call, a card, an email, a knock on the door. Who knows why, friends, they are not attending? But let me encourage you to reach out to someone you have not seen at this church for a long, long time. And that is not something that you pass off to your elders or your pastors or your deacons. That is something that you can do. Maybe it's even a ministry to shut-ins. And you just simply write them a note and say, I've been thinking about you, I miss you, I love you, I've been reading this verse in God's word and thought of you. It's one of the most important things that we can do as a congregation is to take care of the sheep, especially lost sheep, those for whom we can no longer give an account before God. So let them know you love them. Let them know you have missed them. And friends, let the lost sheep know where they can find the good shepherd. So the first point here, and maybe the main point, is the ministry of the disciples here, or the mission of the disciples. Secondly, we see in verse 7 simply the message of the disciples. Look again at verse 7. They were proclaiming as they went that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The disciples were given a single message. Again, the emphasis of the passage is on a continuous action with regularity, fervency, urgency. They are to proclaim the arrival of the kingdom of heaven. Friends, we must never stop preaching the good news of Jesus Christ. It is the greatest news the world has ever heard. Why are we bashful in proclaiming it? This is why Paul will say, I am not ashamed of the gospel of God, the power of God unto salvation. And so the disciples preached the same exact sermon as their master. Their message was his message. And so in Matthew chapter 4, verse 17, we have the very first words that Jesus spoke, or at least recorded words that Jesus spoke in his public ministry in Matthew 4, 17. And we learn that Jesus says, repent, the kingdom of God is at hand. As Jesus preached, so his disciples will preach. I mean, friends, that is our job, especially as ministers, as elders, as pastors, as teachers. As Jesus preached, we preach. As God has given us his word, we proclaim his word. It really is, in many ways, that simple. So in Mark chapter six, verse 12, we learn that the disciples proclaimed the very same message of repentance that Jesus proclaimed. They preached what Jesus preached. You see, if the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the only way for you to enter into that kingdom is to know firsthand the king. That's the key. Oftentimes people are left wondering, well, what is this kingdom? How do I get into it? Friends, it is not a mystery if you want to enter into the kingdom of heaven, you must embrace the king. Faith and repentance represent the doorway into not only the kingdom of heaven, but into the arms of the king. And he has never rejected any who come to him in faith and repentance, but he will reject all who reject him. He offers grace to those who come, knowing their need of Him. This is why the single focus of our message is Jesus Christ. That's why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 or 5, I preach not myself, but Jesus Christ as Lord. Christ is the central focus of our faith, and so from the law, the prophets, the writings, the gospels, the epistles, the apocalypse, we proclaim Christ from all of scripture for the people of God. This is why one of my favorite books in all of church history is written by the great Puritan William Perkins, titled The Art of Prophesying. At the very end of his book, he summarizes the sum total, the thrust of biblical preaching, where Perkins says we are to preach one Christ by Christ to the praise of Christ. That is our mission. Friends, even if you are not a preacher, you have a responsibility to point people to Jesus. All right, that is your job in the house. When you wake up in the morning, when you go to the bed, when you are in the marketplace, you point your family members to Jesus. A disciple, friends, is someone who tells others about Jesus Christ. That is the message of the disciples. Next, we see the ministry of the disciples in verse 8. In verse 8, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. You received without paying, give without pay. The ministry of the disciples was fourfold. They were called to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons. As we have already seen, the ministry of Jesus was the model of their ministry. So, people back then associated the ministry of Jesus with two things, preaching about the kingdom and healing that validated that message. So when the disciples were going out and Jesus was still alive, what did they do? They preached his message and then they did deeds of mercy, works of wonder that validated the ministry of Jesus. Their message and their mercy told the world, we go with Jesus. Now, Jesus today has died. and has risen from the dead as the great validation from God that he is God's final word to us. And so when we go and preach the message of the kingdom, we no longer perform signs and wonders, but we preach the greatest sign of all, Christ in him crucified. Because that is what the world associates with Christ's disciples. We proclaim his message and we point people to his cross. And so the ministry of Jesus was the model of the ministry of the disciples. As the disciples entered towns and cities throughout Galilee, they were tasked with caring for not only the spiritual needs of people through preaching, but the physical needs of people through healing and raising and cleansing and casting out. They were caring for the whole person, in other words. Leon Morris, the great biblical commentator, nicely summarizes the underlying principle of this point when he says this, quote, the way God has treated them is the way they are to treat others. Jesus cared for these disciples. In the name of Jesus, they are to care for others. This is this great biblical principle. You have received without cost, so give without charge. That's the logic of the gospel. As God freely gives, we freely give to others. We preach the gospel indiscriminately, freely, to all and any who will come. We give a free message of grace to all who come to know Jesus Christ. You don't need anything, friends. You don't need to be wealthy. You don't need to be famous. All you need is to know your need of Jesus Christ and you come to Him. So we preach a free gospel of grace and forgiveness for sinners. For sinners like you and me, dear friends. This is actually what the great prophet Isaiah preached himself in Isaiah 55, verse 1. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, Come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Something amazing about the gospel of grace, when you realize God has forgiven you, it makes you quick to forgive others. The gospel opens up our hands that we are freely willing to give to those in need. So the deeds of mercy which the disciples freely extended to the lost sheep of Israel were tangible reminders of the mercy and grace of the Good Shepherd. That's why we do deeds of mercy. We not only proclaim the gospel, but we seek to alleviate real physical burdens that people endure so that they can receive the message, the free message of the Good Shepherd. Friends, we may no longer heal the sick and raise the dead and cleanse leopards and cast out demons, but we certainly are called to demonstrate acts of mercy to those in need. Certainly this is the message of James 1, verse 27, where he says that religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Many of us in the reformed community love the last part of that, but not the first part of that. We love holiness. We love to keep ourselves unstained from the world, but we don't like mercy. We don't like to visit those in need who are afflicted, and yet we are to do both. We are to exhibit holiness and we are to extend love. That's why one of the most important things for the witness of the church between the two comings of Christ is the ministry of the diaconate. Oh, friends, I hope you are supporting your deacons well as they seek to show deeds of mercy and alleviate the physical ailments that people face so that people can be ready to receive the message of mercy and grace that comes from the Good Shepherd. Oh, I hope you are supporting your deacons today. So deacons are the ones who are extending this aspect of the ministry of the disciples today. Well finally and fourthly we have the methods of the disciples in verses 9 to 15. Now these final verses of this section outline the ministry methods of Christ's disciples. And in many ways these methods are austere and extreme. Just for example, look at verses 9 and 10. They are to acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey or two tunics or sandals or staff, for the laborer deserves his food. Billy Graham, if you'll allow me to quote from him, Billy Graham once said that salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you everything you have. And there is a sense in which that is true. And Jesus calls us to come and die, to take up our cross and to follow him, to deny ourselves. The point here is that the disciples are to carry no provision except their trust in God. That's basically the point. What they need is God as they carry the message of Christ to others. After all, the Son of Man himself had nowhere to lay his head, as we see in Matthew 8, verse 20. Jesus did not burden himself with worldly avocations so that he could free himself to give the message of grace to others. Now, the application here is straightforward. As we seek to take the message and mercy of Jesus to the world, we are not to manipulate anyone into the kingdom. You see, Jesus gives us the message and he also provides us the means to deliver his message. That's why today we preach the word and pray the word and see the word and sing the word. We have the means of grace that God gives. Notice here that Jesus did not send marketers and advertisers and educators. He didn't even send theologians. He sent disciples, consecrated men to herald the good news of Jesus Christ, and their job was not to rely on their ingenuity. Their job was to rely on the commission that Jesus gave them. They were to trust that Jesus would provide for their need as they did his work. Certainly, this is the point of the great 20th century evangelical writer, Ian Bounds, who wrote his very famous book, Power Through Prayer. Bounds makes this point. He says, what the church needs today is not more machinery or better new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use, men of prayer, mighty men in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through faithful men and women like you and me. Again, God calls us to be faithful. use the means that God gives to accomplish the mission that Jesus has entrusted to us. Word, sacraments, prayer, these are the means that God gives. And Christ calls us to rely on him to carry out his work. And along the way, some will reject, others will embrace. Regardless, God's work continues. because God's word never fails. If we rely on our ingenuity and the job fails, well, we are certainly responsible. But if we faithfully give ourselves to God's word, we know no matter what, God will bring fruit in his time and his way. Certainly this is again what Isaiah was getting at back again in Isaiah 55 in verse 11. So shall my word that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. God always accomplishes what he intends to accomplish in and through his word. And as the word goes out, for some it will be a message of peace. As the word goes out, for some it will be a message of judgment. You see, the Jews in Jesus' day believed that the dirt where Gentiles lived was unclean. So the Jews would shake off dirt when they left a region, saying good riddance to those good for nothing Gentiles. Well, for those Jews that rejected the disciples, they needed to know they were also rejecting God. Because to reject his word is to reject him. And to reject his disciples is to reject the one who sent them. And so the disciples were to treat unbelieving Jews the same way that Jews treated unclean Gentiles. If they were rejected, they were to shake the dust off of their feet. It was a sign that Jewish unbelief made them unclean and therefore unfit for fellowship in the household of God. Again, to worship in God's house, you don't have to be clean. You don't have to be perfect. You have to know your need for Jesus Christ. That is the only thing you need to come into this house. So friends, the point here is that Jesus is not to be rejected, but embraced. And so here we have a picture of the ministry of Christ's disciples, of those who are sent out in the world. Ordinary men and women pointing other ordinary men and women to an extraordinary Savior. And so we conclude with this illustration. Perhaps you have also heard of the work of John Patton, who was a missionary to cannibals in the New Hebrides, that is Vanuatu in the South Pacific. And one of the major influences on John Patton's life was his father, James Patton, as well as his mother, Wee Gin Patton. James Patton, the father, was known for praying for his children. for leading them in family devotion, for having time together on the Lord's day and making the home a mini sanctuary on the Lord's day. That's what he was known for, catechizing the kids, loving their mother, leading them in family devotion. And also, James and Gin were known everywhere in their village as a couple who loved one another and Jesus Christ. And their love for each other and for Christ and for the surrounding community had such an indelible impression on John Patton, one of the forefathers of the modern missionary movement. And listen to the way that John will talk about his father James. He'll say this, within a radius of five miles, my father was known in every home welcomed by the children, respected by the servants, longed for eagerly by the sick and the aged. He sang sweet psalms beside the sick and prayed like the voice of God at their dying beds. He went cheerily from farm to farm, from cot to cot. He did all of this with his happy partner, Wee Gin. And that was their ministry. So you may not be a minister of the gospel, or a missionary, or a Bible translator, or an elder, or a deacon, but maybe you're just a faithful mom and a faithful dad. And everywhere you go, maybe it's in this neighborhood, maybe it's at your Publix, maybe it's at the local Subway or Chipotle, and you're just known. And along the way, you care for the kids, You ask people how you can pray for them. You might visit people who are in the hospital or shut in. And everywhere you go, you point people to Jesus Christ. You seek to be a faithful disciple of Christ wherever he has called you. So dear friends, I am grateful to God for this congregation and for the ministry of Reformed Presbyterian Church right here in city center Orlando. May he call you and send you to be faithful disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ as you carry out his work in this great city. Let's pray. Our gracious God and heavenly father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the privilege of serving as your disciples. Father, we pray especially for this congregation. We thank you for Pastor Eshelman, for his leadership of the sheep here in this church. We pray for the elders and deacons. We pray for the missionaries and volunteers. We pray for each and every member, every man, woman, and child in this church. Would you build them up and strengthen them in faith, hope, and love in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would use everyone here to disciple others, and you would bless their efforts, and you would use them to bring many sons and daughters into glory. So, Lord, we pray that you would endow us with your Holy Spirit and you would find us faithful each and every day of our lives. We pray this now in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.