We're gonna read God's word together now from Matthew chapter nine. Matthew nine, verse 35, and reading through chapter 10, verse 13. The sermon text will be chapter 10, verses one through eight. And we'll begin reading in Matthew nine, verse 35. This is God's word written for you and for me. Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. When he had called his 12 disciples to him, he gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now, the names of the 12 apostles are these. First, Simon, who's called Peter. And Andrew, his brother. James, the son of Zebedee. And John, his brother. Philip and Bartholomew. Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector. James, the son of Alphaeus. And Labaius, whose surname was Thaddeus. Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. These 12 Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, do not go into the way of the Gentiles. Do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Raise the dead. Cast out demons. Freely you have received. Freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals, nor staffs, where a worker is worthy of his food." This is for God's word. Let's pray and ask his blessing on it. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you speak to us. We hear so many voices in our lives all week long They clamor, calling us this way and that. And we confess that often we turn our ears to them and our hearts are even led astray by them. And we fall into sin. And it leads our hearts far from you. But oh, how we thank you, Lord Jesus, that week after week you speak to us. Your voice calls out from heaven in the reading of your word. And your spirit works to take that word and mold and shape our hearts so that we might be led to you, that we might know you, that we might have fellowship with you, and that our hearts and souls might receive the words that we truly need. Bless us as we come to you in your word today. Amen. Sometimes we send people on missions. Maybe you, as a child, children, maybe your parents send you to go do things, go clean up your room, or go get this or that to help mom and dad. Mom and dad are sending you on a mission. They're giving you a task to do. Sometimes they authorize you for that task. They give you the permission or the authority to tell your brothers and sisters to help you in whatever that mission is. You see people in the Bible being sent on missions. For example, maybe you remember the story of Joshua and the Israelites when they come to Jericho. Before they get to Jericho, Joshua sends two men, the two spies. They go on a mission to spy out the city of Jericho. We send people on missions today, too, not just our children to do things around the house, but we send people on missions to do all kinds of things. A little over half a century ago, I guess, we sent three men on a mission all the way to the moon. We send people to do things. Jesus himself was sent on a mission. Book of Hebrews calls Jesus an apostle, one who was sent. Jesus tells us that he was sent by his father. His father gave him a mission, to come and to seek and to save that which was lost. Jesus was on a mission sent by his father. Here in this passage we see Jesus sending other men on a mission, sending the apostles. We'll look at how Jesus sends the apostles. First, as he sends them with power, sends them with power. Secondly, as he sends them to the lost. And thirdly, as he sends the apostles to preach. So sending with power, sending to the lost and sending to preach. First, Jesus sends the apostles with power. The apostles have a special role. We might say they fill an office. We have people in our society who hold special roles in society or hold a special office. We have judges that have authority in courtrooms, right? We have men who serve as presidents. congressmen and so forth, they have an office or a special role, something to do, and it's official. The apostles in Jesus' kingdom had a special role, an official role, and the word apostle tells us what that role is. The word apostle simply means someone who is sent. These are the men whom Jesus sent. Now, It implies that there's something official about this being sent. They're sent with a special purpose. These apostles are sent to represent the person who is sending them. That is, they are sent to represent Jesus. They speak on behalf of Jesus. They act on behalf of Jesus. In other words, as those sent with this special purpose, They get to speak Jesus' words to people as though Jesus himself were speaking. They get to do things as though Jesus himself were doing them. They act as his representatives. Now in order to be apostles, to fill this special role, they need authority or power. And so we see that Jesus has to send them with power. What is that like? Well, it's kind of like in our day, we have people who we, as a nation, send out to other nations. We call them ambassadors. And the ambassador has a special role or office, and he gets to act on behalf of the United States of America. Ambassadors go to other nations and they negotiate treaties, perhaps for peace or perhaps they negotiate terms for trade deals. They act with a kind of authority on behalf of the nation that sent them. The apostles are similar in this fashion. They come with authority that Jesus has entrusted to them. So the apostles are special role, those sent with authority to act on behalf of King Jesus who sends them. We need to think a moment then about that power or authority that Jesus gives these apostles. In verse 10, we see that, I'm sorry, verse one of chapter 10, we see that Jesus gives them authority or power to cast out demons. He gives them authority or power to heal. And a couple of verses later in verse six, I'm sorry, verse seven, He gives them the authority to go and preach, to speak in his name. Power to cast out demons, power to heal, power to preach or speak in King Jesus' name. Why is it that only these men have this authority to do these things? Perhaps we might ask the question a different way. Why can't anyone be an apostle? Now, that's a very American question to ask. That's the kind of question that we would ask as people who live in a democracy. We live in a nation where there is no king. We take great pride in that. We are citizen rulers. We're all our own man. We're all equals with equal rights. Everyone has the freedom to do pretty much whatever he wants. Nobody's the boss of me. I can do what I want. Why can't I be an apostle? After all, as an American, I have the freedom to do anything. That's the American dream. Why can only some men be apostles? To be an apostle, Jesus had to call these men and to give them special authority. so that they could do the job that he called them to do. Now, this makes sense if we realize that Jesus is coming, not bringing a democracy, but he comes bringing a kingdom. He's the king. He chooses who his servants are. He chooses who he's going to give authority to, who he's going to call and send who will act as his representatives. He has the power, he's in charge, he gets to choose. We see further that these men whom he chose and called to be apostles were called at the heart of their work was preaching, and this preaching required training. Jesus called these men to follow him, and as you read through the story of the Gospel of Matthew, We see that back in chapter four, he called some of these men like Peter and his brothers, and then as they followed around after Jesus, Jesus was training them for the job. They needed training to know what to preach, how to preach, who to call, and who to heal. We see too that the work that Jesus called them to require not only training from Jesus, but it also required actual power from Jesus. Jesus was sending these men to heal the sick, not as men whom he had trained for three years in medical school to go use medicine like doctors to heal people, but in Jesus' name to declare to people that Jesus was healing them. And when they spoke in Jesus' name, they were healed. This meant Jesus had to give them the power to heal people, likewise with casting out of demons. This means setting someone free from the devil, from his power, from his kingdom. This required authority from Jesus. The apostles had no power in this to do themselves, in themselves to do this. Jesus had to give them authority. What kind of an authority does he give them though? We see that they need to be authorized, they need to have power. It is Jesus' own power that he gives to them or delegates to them. They were going to be doing the very same things that Jesus had been doing. We read verse 10, Jesus gives them power to cast out evil spirits to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. And then in verse seven, he sends them out to preach the gospel of the kingdom. These are the very same things we read of Jesus doing in chapter eight and in chapter nine. In the end of chapter nine, we read in verse 35, Jesus went about all the cities preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease. The authority that Jesus gave these men was the same authority or power that he himself was exercising, the power of Messiah, the anointed one. It's very clear here in the context that Jesus is raising up the very workers for the harvest fields, the men, to do the same thing that he had been doing and bringing lost sinners into the kingdom of God. Jesus had told them, just a couple verses earlier, that they need to pray to the Lord of the harvest, to raise up workers for the harvest, because the harvest was so great. Now he begins to raise them up, but in order for them to do the work of the harvest, they need the same authority Jesus has. Now there's something unique, something very special about the work that Jesus called the apostles to do. Something very special or unique about their mission, about their office, and about the power that Jesus gave them. Yes, they were preachers just like preachers today. Just like pastors today who stand before you preaching the gospel, they were preachers. So there's a kind of overlap between the work that preachers do today and the work that the apostles did. Preachers call men into Jesus' kingdom by preaching his gospel. Preachers work in building up the church. But these 12 men, whose names are called out for us, were given a special role. There's overlap, but there's also something unique or different about the 12. There's a direct connection, direct overlap between Jesus' ministry while he was on earth in Israel and the apostles' ministry. As he gives them power and authority and sends them out, they become an extension, you might say, of the work that Jesus is doing, not only in preaching, but in exercising the authority of the kingdom to heal and to cast out. So their work is very much connected with Jesus' work in a special way. And the New Testament describes this work as a foundational work. Now, if preachers, you might say, build up the church or the house of God by calling men out of darkness and into Christ's kingdom, if the house is built as people are added to Jesus' kingdom, the apostles' work was the work of laying the foundation. When you build a house, the foundation is the very first thing you build, right? You build that and it's firm and sure and everything else is built on top of it. The walls of the first floor, the second floor, the roof and so on, all of it is held up by that foundation. And once the foundation is completed, you don't add to the foundation, it's complete, you build the rest of the house. Ephesians chapter two says that the church, like a household, is built on the foundation of the apostles with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone. These 12 men have a special role that isn't repeated by later preachers in laying that initial foundation. And so they're given special authority to do it, to heal, to cast out demons, and so forth. Now we come to these 12 men. We've been talking about their authority But even as we talk about the power that Jesus sent them with, we need to think about the 12 men. Who were these men who were given such great authority and such a special role? In the Gospel of Matthew, we read their 12 names. If you look at the Gospel of Mark, you find we're given their 12 names again. And then again in the Gospel of Luke, And then a second time, Luke gives us the 12 names of these men in Acts chapter one. Four times are given their names. It seems important. Certainly they have a special important role. So it makes sense that their names are repeated. But who were these men? What do we know about them? Well, perhaps you might say, well, I know some things about Peter. He wrote two letters. We read about some things he did, some silly, foolish things he did in the gospels that Jesus had to rebuke him for. He denied his Lord. Jesus restored him after the resurrection. And then we read a little bit of Peter's ministry in the book of Acts. And you might say, well, we know something about that guy, John. He wrote a gospel, just like Matthew. He writes three letters, but beyond that, there's not a whole lot we know about him. And as you go through the rest of the list, you realize we know less and less about the rest of them. That's about what we can say about these 12 men. Such an important role, foundational role, such special authority entrusted to them by the king as apostles. And yet these men are nobodies, uneducated men, The chief priests and scribes will criticize them in the Book of Acts for being uneducated men. Backwater men. Men without worldly power, prestige, or wealth. Men of whom we know very little, except that their names are recorded four times. Men who lived their lives not in prosperity, but largely in suffering for Christ and dying for his name's sake. Yet we know little about them. Why? Why? Because what matters is not the men. the power of Jesus that was exercised through their ministries. That's what matters. That's what's important. That when Jesus sent them out with power and they went and did the things that Jesus called them to do, Jesus was at work. When they preached, Jesus was speaking. When they commanded spirits to leave a man and set him free, Jesus was acting to set that man free. The men themselves, we don't need to know anything about them. We need to know that Jesus was acting through them to build his kingdom. That's the great wonder of these men. Not so much who they were, but what Jesus did through them. If we look in our English Bibles, there's a book called Acts, and usually it says the Acts of the Apostles. But if you were to ask Matthew and the other apostles, they would tell you, no, rewrite that. Say the Acts of Jesus. And if you have to say something about us, say the Acts of Jesus through his apostles. we need to flip around how we think about the apostles. When they spoke with the authority of the apostles, they spoke with Jesus' authority. That is to say, when they spoke, Jesus spoke. When they acted, Jesus acted. Their words and their actions were for Jesus, to bring his kingdom, his reign, and his power and authority to the hearts and lives of men. And the result was that the Church of Jesus Christ was founded, a kingdom where Jesus reigns. Here we have a truly wonderful thing, a thing that in its principle continues to this day. When Jesus acts with his authority through weak and sinful men, he brings his gracious and forgiving rule his blessings to sinners. This is something Jesus still does wherever he sends his preachers to do his work in his name with his power. So Jesus sent the men with power but he sent them to the lost. He sent the Apostles to the lost. This is their mission. We have a branch of the military service called the Coast Guard. Sometimes we forget that. They're a part of the military. The Coast Guard. And the Coast Guard sometimes receives an SOS call, a literal save our ship call. There's a ship out there somewhere in a storm. The captain radios in the coordinates. Here's where we are. And we're taking on water and we're sinking. and the Coast Guard sends out a boat with men on it with a mission. Go find that sinking boat, save the captain and the crew, and bring them back safe and alive. They have a mission. Jesus gave his apostles a mission. Go find the lost sheep and bring them into my kingdom. Now he tells them, don't go to the Gentiles. Don't go to the Samaritans. Not yet, anyway. This might seem a little confusing to us. Jesus is saying, first go to Israel. First go to my covenant people, the ones with whom God made a covenant with Abraham long ago. Paul speaks of them in Romans chapter 11. He says that Israel is beloved for the sake of the fathers. God's beloved chosen people were to receive the gospel of the kingdom first. Later, Jesus will send his apostles to the Gentiles. Of course, God had promised a savior to all mankind. Immediately after the fall, God promised that he would send someone, a seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, who would reverse the effects of the fall and of the kingdom of darkness. God later promised Abraham same language, a seed. Abraham would have a seed, a descendant, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Matthew told us at the opening of the Gospel of Matthew that this Jesus was that son of Abraham, not just the son of David, the king, but the son of Abraham, who would bring that salvation to the Gentiles. So as we read the Gospel of Matthew, we know this is coming. But Jesus says not yet. First go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. There's a connection between this initial mission to the Israelites. There's a connection between this initial mission and the special ministry of the apostles, the 12. Like the 12 sons of Jacob who fathered the 12 tribes of Israel, These 12 men were the beginning of a new Israel, or you might say a renewed Israel. A renewed Israel where God, through Christ, the Messiah, would reign over his people. A renewed Israel where the son of David, King Jesus, would truly reign in the hearts of men, leading them in righteousness and justice. And that's exactly what Jesus came to do. to form and shape a new people of God, to make with them a new covenant in his blood. And so the ministry of the 12 was to gather the lost sheep of the house of Israel and to bring them, Jesus' sheep, into his sheepfold, to gather his people into a new congregation, a new church, a new kingdom of God. In Revelation 21 verse 14, We read of that new church that came down out of heaven, a new Jerusalem, a new people of God. And we read this about that new people of God. Now the wall of the city had 12 foundations and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the lamb. Jesus calls these 12 men out and sends them out to gather his people out of Israel first to begin shaping and forming them into a new Israel, a new people of God. That was their mission. And as they do so, Jesus sends them to the lost. Israel's shepherds, we looked at last week, the Pharisees and the rabbis, they weren't feeding God's people. And so the sheep strayed. They didn't hear the gospel from the Pharisees, so they strayed away from God, wandered far from him, and they became lost. Lostness, waywardness, wandering from God because they weren't reading, receiving, following his word. Wandering from God is just another way of saying rebellion and sin. They're lost in their sins. But in their waywardness, what happens to lost people? Even lost Israelites, lost descendants of Abraham, God's chosen people, what happens to them? As they wander from God, they wander in their sin, and they wander into another kingdom. They wander, as it were, away from God, out of his reign, and into the reign of the devil. The people whom Jesus sends his apostles out to find are lost and wayward, far from God, but now under the power of the devil. We see why the apostles need authority to cast out demons. because these men have come under the authority, these men and women who are lost, have come under the authority or power of the devil. The devil ruled the nations. Matthew chapter four, when the devil comes to tempt Jesus, he claims to have authority over the nations, and he did. But here we find that Israelites have come in their lostness and sin under his power. We see why they need Jesus' power to set men free from demons, because Jesus is sending them to do battle with the powers of darkness. They're going out to drive out the kingdom of darkness and to bring people into Jesus' kingdom, to take people back from bondage to Satan. Only Jesus can do this. They need his power. Now this is good news for lost sheep. Not just in Jesus' day, but everywhere, even today. It's good news for lost sheep. Jesus has sent his workers out into the fields to find lost men and women and to bring them back to Jesus' sheepfold, back to his kingdom, into his new Israel. Now they were only to go to the house, the lost sheep of the house of Israel initially. But after they did so, after they pursued for three long years, Jesus and then the 12 apostles pursued the lost sheep of the house of Israel, what happened? Israel heard the gospel message. They saw the effects of the gospel as people were healed, demons were cast out. They met their king. And they put him on a cross. They rejected him. When Jesus was put on the cross, he died for the sins of his people. Not just Israel, but the nations. That's the pivotal moment when everything changes. And it no longer becomes just about Israel, God's people, whom he brought out of bondage to slavery, but becomes about all of the nations. whom Jesus has purchased with his blood. That's what Jesus is saying at the end of the Gospel of Matthew when he sends his apostles out a second time. Having raised from the dead, he says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. You see those nations out there? They belong to me. I paid for their sins with my blood. Now go and find my lost sheep. There's hope, hope for lost sheep in misery, in sin, in slavery to the devil because Jesus has purchased them with his blood and he sends his apostles to set them free. So the apostle Peter will write a few years later of Gentile Christians, of the nations. Peter says, you were like sheep going astray. but now you have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. Jesus sent his apostles for lost sheep. That's their mission. But thirdly and finally, we see that Jesus sent them to preach. Here we come to the nitty gritty work of the apostles. They're empowered, they have authority, they have a mission, they know who they're looking for, How are they gonna go and find them? And how are they gonna bring these people into Jesus' kingdom? He commands them to preach and to heal. What is preaching? We looked at it last week as Jesus carried out the work of preaching, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. What is it? It's an official activity. Here we are back to authority and something special and official. These men are like a king's heralds. Jesus is the king and he sends these men out into the world to speak in his name. He's the king, he issues decrees. His heralds go out and they say, thus says the king, and they read his decrees in his name. They bring the king's words with his authority, that is with his power. Everywhere these apostles were sent, they were to declare, the king has come. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Why is the kingdom of heaven, that is the reign or the power of the kingdom here? Because the king is here. They were to declare that the king was present. And because the king was present, men need to repent. That's the summary of the gospel. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. gets truncated even further here as Jesus sends them out, merely the king is here. The only proper response for sinners to hear when they hear that the king is here is to repent. Because Jesus is a gracious king, a king who comes offering forgiveness. And so his heralds cry out, turn from your sins, turn to Jesus the king, he will forgive you. Here we find the way to the kingdom opened up in the preaching of the gospel. The kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. It's a kingdom that Jesus sets up in the hearts of men. And the way to the hearts of men is through the preaching of the gospel, not through armies with swords and weapons, but through gospel preachers. This is their work. This is the way they bring men into Jesus' kingdom. Repenting is a heart matter. Turning from sin, hating it, turning to Jesus and seeking forgiveness. This is heart stuff. Preaching speaks to the heart. In the gospel message, Jesus sets up his reign in men's hearts. We talk about Jesus setting up his throne in men's hearts. That's what we're talking about. Hearts changed to obey the words of King Jesus. They were sent to preach, but they were also sent to preach with actions. What kind of actions? There's four of them listed in verse eight. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Don't just preach that the kingdom is here. Demonstrate that it's here. Sometimes when we're teaching, I don't do it here from the pulpit, but sometimes we're teaching, we want to make an idea really clear to the students. We use a whiteboard or a chalkboard and we draw a picture or an illustration to help people understand what it is that we're teaching. Their actions illustrated the gospel. They didn't just prove it. Heal, cleanse, raise, cast out, yes, they prove that the king is here. When the power of the king was exercised, men knew the king was there. When men who were lame stood up, when lepers were cleansed, we know the king is here because we see his power at work. Yes, it proves the message is true. But it did more than that, it showed that What King Jesus does to men outwardly, as their bodies were healed, Jesus was doing inwardly in their hearts as the gospel was preached. Remember the relationship between these men, the apostles, and Jesus. What they did was an extension of Jesus. He exercised his authority through them. So it was. that as they cast out demons, Jesus was truly setting men's hearts free from bondage. Jesus, as the gospel was preached, was not just raising men physically from the dead, but he was raising their hearts from spiritual death. As lepers were cleansed, Jesus was showing that he was cleansing men's hearts of their sins. And as every kind of disease was healed, Jesus was showing that he came to heal every disease of the heart and soul. We talked about an overlap between the apostles and preachers. There's an overlap here as well. As preachers seek the lost today, Preachers don't have the same authority that apostles did. I can't speak to someone who's sick lying in a bed and say, be healed and get up in the name of Jesus. It doesn't happen. But I don't need that kind of power. The work of the apostles is recorded for us. Their witness and their testimony, everything they did is recorded for us in the New Testament. Their work as they went around healing, proclaiming, gathering a church, and laying the foundation for the church, that work remains. In a way, whenever the New Testament gospel is preached, the authority that Jesus exercised through the apostles is exercised again today. Jesus is the chief cornerstone. It's all about him. Jesus sent the apostles as preachers of the kingdom, but today on high, he still calls preachers and sends them out into the fields to work. He spoke through the apostles, he speaks through preachers today also. When we as preachers call men to believe in Jesus, Jesus speaks with authority and he brings hearts to life. When we extend the promises of forgiveness of sins and of hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ, Jesus takes your hearts and he heals them and he gives them hope again. He takes the places in your hearts that are wounded and torn and Jesus heals them. When we preach, Jesus sets souls free. Jesus raises dead hearts. Jesus cleanses sins. Leprosy of the heart. And Jesus heals sin sick souls. Jesus sent the apostles. He sent them with authority, just like we send all kinds of people to do all kinds of things. But the heart of the matter, the heart of all of this, that you need to carry with you is that Jesus is working in your hearts today by his word. Turn to him. Let's pray. Our God and our King, we begin by confessing that we so often come to your word with doubting hearts and with unbelief. Lord Jesus, our hearts are so distracted, discouraged, and hurting. So as we open your word to read it in our homes, as we come to hear it preached, we come with little hope. Little hope for ourselves and little hope for others. We confess that this is gross unbelief. We thank you that you are indeed at work today, that even as you are at work here on earth, You work yet more powerfully now, having poured out your Holy Spirit on the hearts of men. Open our hearts that in your word we might find the treasures that our souls so desperately long for. Grant us faith that we might serve you faithfully. Hear us, we ask. Amen.