Father, we pray that all our works, all our praises, all our trials, Father, all our faithful labors will bring glory to your name. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And you may be seated. And I will ask you to open with me this morning to Matthew chapter 10. And Matthew pivots a little bit here and gives us some information that he thinks we need to have. And then he commissions his apostles to go out into the world really for the first time without him. And so Matthew writes these words. And when he had called his 12 disciples to him, he gave them power. 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 twelve apostles are these. First, Simon, who was 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 and do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather 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. For a worker is worthy of his food. Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whatever, or rather, whoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it'll be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than it will be for that city. Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore, be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils, scourge you in their synagogues. You'll be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. And when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak. For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father who speaks in you. Now brother will deliver a brother to death and a father his child and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death and you'll be hated by all for my name's sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in the city, flee to another for assuredly I say to you, you'll not have gone through the cities of Israel before the son of man comes. A disciple is not above his teacher nor a servant his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household? Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light, that whatever you hear in the air, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who's able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin, and not one of them falls to the ground apart from your father's will? But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear, therefore. You are of more value than many sparrows. Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward. Our Father, we ask that you make your teaching of this passage known to us, not only in our hearts, O Lord, but in our experience. We pray in Jesus' name. And so Matthew begins this section when he had called his 12 disciples. In other words, he hadn't called them yet. He gave them power. I almost entitled the sermon, He Gave Them Power, but it seemed that wise as serpents or wily as serpents and harmless as doves encapsulated the chapter better. And we'll look into some of the specifics of it more closely in coming weeks. But he called his 12 disciples to him and gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out. And otherwise, friends, there are unclean spirits, and they need to go out. And he gave them power to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. So this is a pivotal passage in the gospel. Jesus was doing all those things. He was renowned for doing those things. Multitudes came to him for healing and he healed them. And he spoke words of wisdom to them. He was well-known. There was a great following coming after him in Galilee. And all of those that followed after him are called affectionately disciples. So there are believing disciples. There are unbelieving disciples. Those are the ones who say they're disciples, but eventually just wither away when the times get tough. And boy, do they get tough. That was hard to read. So obviously by this time, Jesus had amassed many followers called a multitude. His popularity among the masses was due to his wisdom, like the Sermon on the Mount, right? And his conspicuous acts of healing. He not only healed, but people saw the healing. People knew they were healed. Family members saw it. It always amazes me. The multitudes could come out, could be healed, could see the power of God. He could place it in other men. They also could heal. And yet in the end, they put him to death. It's always amazed me, the evil in men's hearts. But let's not be amazed. Let's be wily as serpents about it. So here he speaks of 12. He called his 12 disciples. So out of all these disciples, he called what? His 12. Now there are a number of things I would consider here. First, there are 12 referred to here as his disciples. The so-called multitude has thus far in the record been loosely referred to as his disciples, but now he says his disciples. And yet here the Lord seems to take ownership of a mere 12 of them. Those are his. Well, whose are the others? And so these are the handpicked servants who will be blessed with the powers of Christ himself. They're given the power to heal. They're given the power to cast out demons by their word, just as we've seen Jesus do. They'll perform the signs and wonders that he performed to the approval and amazement of the masses who followed after them. I always wonder that there's not a lot of stories in the scriptures about them doing this. Can you imagine? Do you ever think of Judas being blessed with this power? So 12 are singled out. But we should remember that thus far in Matthew's gospel, we only heard of five. We've only heard of five. Peter, called Simon, who's called Peter, or Peter who's sometimes called Simon, however you like it. He's always listed first. There are several lists of the apostles. Peter's always first. He's paired with his brother, Andrew, usually. John and James are next. Famously, they are the sons of a man called Zebedee. Why they tell us that? Not sure. Zebedee was also a fisherman. He was also, I got to assume, he was a big thunderous man. Now if you've read my book, I know most people haven't and most people don't read books, but if you do, you'll find that I have Zebedee with a big booming voice, a thunderous voice, a preacher's voice, a man of God. And so they are his sons, and so he nicknames them elsewhere, sons of thunder. You knew that, right? Sons of Thunder. All right? So that's James and John. Matthew was called out of his government job to leave all and follow the Messiah. Matthew was a tax collector. He worked for the Roman government. All right? So it seems the 12, though not known to us as of yet, were known among them, hence the phrase he called his 12 disciples. I had to think Matthew had to be a controversial pick. Had to be a controversial pick. Even Jesus said when he's talking bad about someone, he said, treat them as a heathen and a tax collector. And here he picks a tax collector to write his gospel. He is truly an enigma, both Matthew and Jesus. It's not inconsequential that they've been given great powers of healing. I mean, what did he do? Did he zap them? Was there a lightning bolt, or did he just say, I bestow this power upon you? Probably laid hands on. And now they have the power to heal diseases. All kinds of diseases, it says. They even have exorcism power and resurrection power. Though we don't see any of them raise the dead till we get to the book of Acts, and then we see the apostle Paul and Peter do that. And Paul is not even one of the 12. He's one born as of out of due time, he says, right? And Peter raises Tabitha, also called Dorcas, her Greek name. And Paul raises Eutychus, who fell out of a window because he fell asleep listening to a sermon. And fell a couple of floors, chapter 20 of Acts, I believe it is. They'll need these powers and more to fulfill the calling of Christ. as their lives continue with him and after him. Now before we're tempted to make applications for modern Christianity and contemporary disciples, let's not make the mistake that so many make with regard to appropriating the powers of God. There are whole denominations that will tell us these powers are for all believers. Did you get that out of the context? We're all granted with powers, though. There are powers that all believers have, right? Friends, even the prophets didn't have these powers. In fact, if you go back in the Old Testament, you will find, with the exception of Elijah and Elisha, who were definitely singled out, there were no other resurrections. And you can check me on this. But John the Baptist, who was the greatest among men, right? No man born of a woman is greater than John the Baptist. And he didn't do these things. These are not granted to all of God's people. There are whole denominations that claim that that is the case and that they do these things. In fact, I came into the Christian fold through some of those denominations until I saw how disingenuous these people really were. And there's nothing here about taking money for your services, is there? J. Vernon McGee said, he told one of the faith healers one time, you should just go up into the hospital and put them out of business. You should go in and heal them. And his assessment was, when the man didn't go, is there's really no place in the hospital to take an offering, so he didn't go. He can be very cynical, which is one of the reasons I like him. So before we were tempted to make those applications, let's look more closely at the context. We're all granted certain powers. There's no doubt of that. We're all given access to the Holy Spirit. I think we have to remember when we say the Holy Spirit, it's not some lesser declension of God. He is God. He's co-equal and co-eternal. God is in us. His power is with us. He's here in this room. He lives in your heart. If you have a new heart, if you're a new wine skin, then the new wine is in the new wine skin. There's a new spirit in you. So we all have that, right? For as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. In other words, if you're not led by the spirit of God, you're not a son of God. And by sons, it means children, of course, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. That's a fleshy thing, the spirit of bondage to fear. Friends, we all have our fears, but we must not be in bondage to our fears. I find I am susceptible to be in bondage to my fears. And the antidote is to go to the Word of God whenever it is, however inconvenient it is. And God has never denied me the power in that moment through His Word to come out of that fear and operate on faith. Never denied me. The word is powerful. Take it seriously. Go to it when you need it. For you don't have a spirit of fear, but you receive a spirit of adoption. A spirit of adoption. You're an adopted child of God. That's why you cry out, Abba, Father. That's a colloquial name. It's like saying daddy. It's only by the indwelling spirit of God that we may call God Father. and we have him hear us and accept us as dear children. He hears our prayers. He's promised to do so if we pray in his name. Now there's a great heresy with regard to this today, and it's called the universal fatherhood of God. He's the father of some friends, but he's not the father of all. Jesus said as much to his detractors when he said to them, you are of your father, the devil. So there's at least two fathers to the human race. And the desires of your father, you want to do, he goes on to tell them that their father does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. The Spirit of God gives us power beyond this life, greater than any that resides in the present evil world. And he tells us that we are more than conquerors. In other words, our conquering abilities are spiritual and they go beyond this life. A great conqueror can conquer and kill only the flesh. He has no power to take your spirit. But you are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. You can be conquered and not be conquered at the same time. conquered and prevail. The Holy Spirit gives us power to resist sin. I think we make light of some of these powers. This is the reason he gave us the Holy Spirit, so we could resist sin, so that we could resist lies. If you're rejoicing when you hear the word of God, and I know that you are, it is because the Holy Spirit is in you, and he's empowering you to rejoice. And he's empowering you not to rejoice when you hear lies and to know it to some extent. He gives us power to stand in truth, to stand against the spirit of antichrist. John writes about it. He said, which you heard was coming and now is already in the world. John said 2000 years ago, and then he offers us this bulwark of our faith. He says, he who was in you is greater than he who is in the world. He who was in you is greater than he who was in the world. God is in you. To the Ephesians he writes, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is the guarantee of our inheritance. If you're born again, the Spirit of God is in you and you are guaranteed to be a joint heir with Christ in eternity. All that Christ has is yours. He's the begotten Son of God, you are the adopted sons and daughters of God. Likewise, the Spirit helps in our weaknesses, Paul wrote to the Romans. We do not know what to pray for as we ought. Have you ever been there? I go to the Lord a lot and I say, I don't even know what to pray. I don't even know what to pray. Sometimes you don't know that though. Sometimes you're rattling off your prayers and it's not what you ought to be praying. But don't worry, the Holy Spirit is making intercession for you in groanings that you cannot utter. Some people say, that's the tongues. No, it's groanings that can not be uttered, right? He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. In other words, God can't pray out of his own will. So those are great powers that all Christians have. And why would I focus on these things? Well, it's simple. It's because so many in our time have presumed that the powers Christ gave to the apostles are the same with all the saints. And I don't think the context supports it at all. The context reveals the extent and limitation of those powers. And we see it, and I was going to read one more verse, so I'll read it to you now. Chapter 11, verse 1 says, Now it came to pass when Jesus finished commanding his twelve disciples, he departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities. This chapter really is for them. Now we know, because we know the end from the beginning, because we've read it all, that some of those powers and expectations of Christ are given to us also. But never are we given all of these supernatural powers of healing and resurrection and exorcism and all of these things. So the powers he bestows upon the twelve are for them. They are not universal blessings of the saints and the faith. And why does he give them these powers, friends? They're his credentials. They are the demonstration that they've been with him. Only God could give them those powers, right? So how did you know at the beginning that things had changed? There's a new prophet on the scene. And this prophet that heals people sends out people with the power to heal people. They are the credentials. They didn't carry a resume, oh, I've been with Jesus for five months. You know, so I think you ought to take me seriously. They didn't have to do that. They could heal. They could exercise. You know, we see these movies, The Exorcist. These are the exorcists, friends. Doesn't ever talk about green bile in any of these episodes. Did you ever notice that? Heads don't turn around. So by this time in the story, the fame of the prophet from Galilee was spread throughout the land. Jesus was famous now throughout Galilee and other places. So the blessings were to be spread also. The fame was spread. The blessings ought to be spread. You freely received, freely give. That's how it works. You freely received, freely give. Right? And so he famously sent them out to preach the blessings of God. And the proof of their divine association was their divine abilities. that could be given them by no one but him alone, even still, they would fail to deliver on occasion. I'll give you one occasion. They were unable to cast out a particular stubborn demon from an epileptic child. Do you remember that one? And they couldn't get it to work. And they thought, he gave us the power and it won't work. And Jesus comes in. Well, I didn't tell you everything. He said, when asked why they were unable, Jesus said, because of your unbelief. In other words, They doubted the powers that he gave them. They had unbelief in that. It had to be attended by a willful faith. And he said, however, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. Well, that would have been nice to know when we came upon the epileptic. But then Jesus healed him. Well, Jesus said, I have many things to tell you, you cannot bear them all now. He's always unfolding the teaching over time. And I'm gonna get to that. So friends, the whole hard part of living for Christ is the faith part. Faith is the hard part. Even they, with all those powers and all that access to Jesus personally, still failed in their duties as ministers. Faith is the hard part. They had unbelief. That's, what is that? That's a lack of faith, right? You know, faith cannot fail us. But we fail our faith. And I don't mean to turn that into an expression, but it works. We fail our faith. They failed their faith. Their faith didn't fail them. Faith can't fail. And this chapter is all about those things. We cannot give faith preconditions. We like to do that all the time. We cannot put it second place to anything, our faith in Christ. If you love Father, Mother more than me, you're not worthy of me." I mean, those are pretty hard sayings, right? Friends, as soon as we make faith convenient, it becomes irrelevant. We're always trying to fit it in, fit in our faithful works. I had a friend of mine, he used to go out and do the short-term missions. I did one of those. It was very rewarding. I went to Jamaica many years ago. Very poor people, 85% fatherlessness on the island, and it was a great, wonderful thing. But this guy had gone on a number of different short-term missions, and he said to me, you know, I like it so much, when I retire, I'm gonna go full-time. I happen to know he retired, he didn't go full time, but I'm just going to tell you, you can't do that with God. You can't say, let me bury my dead, let me bury my father first, meaning let me let him live out his life and I'll take care of him when he finally dies, I'll come to you. It doesn't work that way. It's just faith is not convenient. Jesus said, let the dead bury their own dead. You follow me. As soon as we try to make it convenient, it becomes irrelevant and Jesus will have no part of it. It will never fit in to our schedules. It'll keep us up at night. It will demand our time when we have no time to give. Faith does these things. And if it doesn't do it to you, it does it to me every week. It will faint within us when we put aside our first love and are content to go after other things, when we believe our own excuses. And so he goes on. He gives us a little more description. The names of the 12 apostles are these. First, Simon, who is called Peter. And Andrew, his brother. James, the son of Zebedee. John, his brother. Philip and Bartholomew. Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector. James, the son of Alphaeus. Labaius, whose surname was Thaddeus. Simon, the Canaanite. And Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. The reason I list it, again, is because there are different lists in the scriptures. Do not be alarmed. Matthew is elsewhere called what? Levi, right? would have been pronounced Levy, but since everyone says Levi, I'm going to go with it. Make some sort of a advertisement for jeans. Bartholomew is called Nathaniel elsewhere. Thaddeus is Judas, not Iscariot. Elsewhere he's called, there's two Judases. One is Judas Iscariot and one is Judas, not Iscariot. All right. And I've given you the text to find those in the scripture. First in his gospel, Matthew calls them apostles for the first and last time in his gospel record. This is the only time Matthew calls them apostles. It's the first time and it's the last time. Even in the very next reference to them in 11.1, he calls them disciples again. It's a term distinct from an ordinary disciple, although they're used interchangeably at times. So, an apostle is a disciple who's graduated to higher office. A disciple is a learner, essentially, and an apostle is a delegate, a delegate who goes out to represent his master or his leader, right? He's sent on behalf of another. One who comes with the power and authority of his leader. An apostle speaks for Christ and comes with the same authority as Christ. So if an apostle is a learner with an upgraded measure of authority, then even though one advances to the office of apostle, he does not cease to be a disciple. So it's not wrong to call him a disciple. Not every disciple is an apostle, but every apostle is a disciple. Right? And so Jesus said, or rather Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he himself gave some to be apostles. When you go into the Mormon temple, I know that you visit there that often in your in your excursions. No, but when you go into the Mormon temple, there are different offices on the doors, and one of them is pastors, and another one is prophets, and another one is apostles. I am not of the belief that there is apostolic succession. I am certainly not of the belief that the popes are the modern-day equivalents of apostles. That's for another denomination to work out. We just don't see it that way. History will not bear that out in any way, by the way. And so he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now the body of Christ is a, it's a strange body because some of it's in the earth and some of it's in heaven. and the ones that are in heaven are the church triumphant, we've talked about that, and the ones on the earth are the church militant, we're still in the battle. According to Calvin's commentaries, which I'm going from memory, I've read quite a while ago on this verse, he believes that all of these officers, offices, Apostles, prophets, and evangelists are all in heaven, and the only ones left here are the pastors and teachers perpetually. Now, by evangelist, don't take the common use of the word. By evangelist, he means those empowered to write the scripture. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are traditionally referred to as the evangelists, the four evangelists. You follow me? So it's not saying that we don't do personal evangelism. It's just saying those empowered to give us the Word of God in the written form They don't exist anymore on this side of glory. And I find that acceptable and I find Calvin exceedingly hard to argue with anyway. I usually don't try. So the equipping of the saints, right? Pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of what? Ministry. Saints have ministries. Saints have ministries. And it's implied there, and it's explicit other places. I can't tell you how honored I am to be named among those of old who work for the Lord for the sake of edifying the body of Christ. Yet me, like they, though we're given offices in the church, do not cease to be learners. We don't cease to be learners when we receive an office. So some have the office of ministry, but all the saints have a work of ministry that they're being equipped for. You do have a ministry. So when reading the Gospels, I've always found it interesting how the conventions of modern literature are not honored. In modern literature, when you're telling a story, you give a lot of details. You draw people into the story. You foreshadow events. You don't tell them the end from the beginning. They don't do that here. It's right at the beginning, it says, Judas who betrayed him. It's like, oh man. Spoiler alert, Judas betrayed Christ. But imagine receiving this and reading it for the first time. He already told us the end. We know who the bad guy is. They also don't give us the details we want. I crave so many more details. Part of exegesis is trying to fill those in with reliable research, but not wild guesses. So plot and storyline are not so important to ancient writers as they are to modern writers. You've noticed that when you read the Gospels, right? It just doesn't lay out the same as reading the Lord of the Rings or something. A second point is that the reader is not kept in suspense about certain things, which I've already said. There's no subtle foreshadowing. Like Judas, that's doing all these bad things. I'm going to keep my eye on him. We'll find as we move through the record that only with only a few, a mere three of them, three of the 12 become the close associates of Jesus. Those are the ones he wants with him when he's really in trouble. Like in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Transfiguration. He only wants, which of course he wasn't in trouble on the Mount of Transfiguration, but in his glory. Jesus dispenses wisdom and knowledge very carefully, right? In an orderly way. And so these 12 Jesus sent out and commanded them saying, do not go into the way of the Gentiles. Now you know that's not for us. He's telling them not to go to the Gentiles. We go to the Gentiles because we are the Gentiles and don't enter the city of the Samaritans. Well, we can enter the city of the Samaritans, right? But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go preach saying the kingdom of God is at hand. So he gave them a very specific instruction for a very specific point in time. Agreed. I don't know if I'm right because Rick hasn't said amen yet, so I'm waiting. I'm not hearing anything. Rick's been so stubborn today. I've always pointed out to you the great emphasis of God's explicit order. God does things in an orderly way. Have you noticed that? He created in an orderly fashion. You know, go back to Genesis 1. He creates in an orderly fashion. First of all, he didn't want to work in the dark, so he invented light. He just called it into being. It's too dark. You know, what good is the earth if there's no light to see the beauty of it? So he called light out of darkness. No sun yet, but there's light. All right? Night and day were given their perpetual roles. The waters were divided from the firmament. The moon and stars were put in their places. I always think of them like throwing seeds. There's the stars. Dry land appeared, vegetation of all kinds, every manner of wild beasts given to Rome to be fed. And then man was placed in the idyllic garden, and woman came from the man, very orderly, piece by piece. Took six days. Now you know God could have done it in one day. Instead of let there be light, he could have said, let there be everything. Right? He could have. He does things orderly. He unfolds. And I think he's teaching us things. And then he rested on the seventh day, and we know that he was teaching us about the Sabbath. It's even used as an example later as to one of the reasons we honor the Sabbath, because God rested on the seventh day. It's the same in the dispensation of eternal truths. The gospel would go first to those who were designated to embrace it, who were the Jews. The Jewish nation. They were the people of God. All right? Again, we see that what was given for these first disciples to accomplish is not the same for us in our time. It wasn't even the same for them in their time later on in the gospel. He said to them, here, don't take a purse or a money belt. Take one tunic, right? No change of clothes, apparently, right? And later on, he says, I told you before not to bring money. Now I'm telling you, bring a money bag. And bring a tunic. In fact, bring a sword, he told them in the end. Dispensations do unfold. And no, that doesn't make me a dispensationalist any more than I say things evolve makes me an evolutionist. It's a word. All right. So the Apostle Paul in particular who was born again as one out of due time was called to enlarge on the first commission and sent directly to the Gentiles. So the dispensation changed. You see the order changed. First it was to the Jewish nation, then the Samaritans, right? And then to the outer parts of the earth. And Paul was called to the Gentiles. So he's unfolding his plan. And so God's unfolding plan for the church has been built in waves of an implicit order. You also may have noticed that at opportune moments in his own choosing, Jesus violates that order. He already blessed the Gentile in the story. He already blessed the Centurion, right? We know from John chapter 4 that he decided to go to the Samaritans. He's God. He can do what he wants. He's not even under his own law, apparently. So he went to the Samaritans. He got her blessed. She went and told everybody the story, and a whole bunch of believers came out of it. They weren't even supposed to be there, technically, right? So he always throws us a little enigma like that to unravel. So he went to Samaria, he too answered the prayers of Gentile supplicants like the centurion of the previous chapter and the Samaritan woman at the well among others, the famous Syro-Phoenician woman who said that even the little dogs eat the crumbs from the master's table, remember that? He wasn't going to bless her because she wasn't a child of Israel but really it's a test, he's testing her faith and she wouldn't give up so he blessed her. Couldn't help himself. Verse 16, therefore I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Christianity's dangerous. It was dangerous then, and it's dangerous today. It's less dangerous today, but I think that's because perhaps it's less true than it was. Not that it can really be less true, I mean, how much of what Jesus said in chapter 10 here could be put out on that church marquee? You know? I came not to bring peace but a sword. You want to put that out on the church marquee or in the promotional literature? How about a man's enemies will be those of his own household? You know, there's a lot of things here that we leave out because they are inconvenient. And friends, I'm not saying when you're first teaching the precepts of Christ to an unbeliever that you ought to start with, Hey, you're a son of the devil, you're demon possessed. You got no hope without Christ. That's probably not the best approach, but eventually the church has to stand on some of these truths. Is God really the father of everyone? Can everyone really say our father who art in heaven and have it be taken seriously? And so I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I like the old King James which says, be wily as serpents and harmless as doves. Faith in God is a dangerous business. We spoke last week as to the lack of constructive influence the church has had on the greater part of society. It's amazing when you actually look at statistics that say it. I don't like looking at statistics, but sometimes they're useful. It's just amazing to me that even Christians, I mean, we make up, Protestants make up, I think it's something around 33% of American society, and only 45% of those who say they're Christians consider it very important in their lives that they're Christians. it's just somewhat important to the rest or not very important at all. So, who are the real Christians? The ones God will recognize as the Christians when we come before Him. I don't think you can go and say, well I took you seriously. I mean, not that seriously, I'm not a fanatic. Can you go to God and say that? So, Our religion has not had the influence upon American morality that we would have hoped it would have had, I think. Some of it's because we said, well, you can't speak to cultural issues. You've got to be quiet on those, anything political. So we take ourselves right out of the mix, right out of the conversation, and we don't think something else is going to fill in there. I think that's a first mistake. We identified several reasons why this might be, and Jesus foreshadows for us the reason why. He laments of this very thing in a later chapter. He says in his time it was the same thing. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. Jerusalem kills the prophets. They killed so many prophets. I'm always amazed they included the Old Testament the way they did. They put people, writers of the Old Testament, and kept them in the canon, even though they killed them. They stoned those who were sent to her. They stoned Paul, as I read this morning. He was sent to them. How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. You know, Jesus gathers us, but we have to be willing. There has to be a point in our lives where we actually choose for Christ. And he says, see, your house is left to you desolate, for I say to you, you shall see me no more till you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Our faith in God will be tested and tried and ridiculed and overburdened. You can expect real faith will come with all those things. Have you ever been ridiculed for your faith? I mean, people blithely wipe out the possibility that the Bible is the Word of God. You know, I told you about my friend last week, just wiped out the whole existence of the church. No, I go to the woods. Forget the church. I'm more comfortable in the woods. Me and God are mates. I told you about that. So faith is tried and tested and ridiculed and overburdened, but it's also unbreakable. Now hearts are breakable, whether you have faith or not faith, hearts are breakable. In the course of living for God, I found that my heart has been broken many times. Perhaps yours has also. As Christian parents, we have our hearts broken by our children on occasion, right? So is faith really practical? I don't think we can expect it to be practical in every case. Faith is practical in these ways. Let one man be the husband of one wife and you'll be blessed for it. It works practically in your life, right? The domestic rules, train up your children the way they should go and when they're old they will not depart from it, right? Practical things, in that sense faith is practical. But we can't expect evangelism to be a practical thing, a worship on Sunday morning when the rest of the world does other things. Did anybody see the unveiling of the statue? The Tom Brady statue? No one saw that? Karen and I happened to be home Friday afternoon. Daniel comes over a lot on Fridays, because he's going to socialize in Plymouth, and he stops in. And the Brady thing was on. The reason we watched it is the sculptor for the Brady statue is the sculptor for the John Sassamon statue. Same guy, OK? And so Robert Kraft had him come up. Jeff Boccaccio, who we've met, I've shown you pictures of him, and he hugged him and everything. And Kraft, and I want to say this when I go into this, I have nothing against the owner of the Patriots, Kraft, I think he's a very nice man, a good man, faithful husband all his life, very well-spoken man, I have nothing against him, and I'm not trying to decry him, but did anyone hear the speech? He essentially said No, this is a quote, Tom Brady made Sunday sacred again. Now you had to know that, crush me, it was a really good speech otherwise for everyone that loves sport and that kind of thing, but it's like, did you even know that Sunday was already sacred to God and God made it sacred? Really? Society has not been influenced by Christianity. It was, you know, the local stations were playing this because it was over at Gillette, right? So it's local news. So they were all playing it. And we watched the whole speech because, and then Brady got up and he gave a speech. I had nothing against these guys. They're probably very good human beings. I've heard people get up and say, oh, Brady's a better person than he is a football player. That's great. But Sunday is for God. You didn't make it sacred. That is the most sacrilegious thing boldly stated I've ever heard, and by a diminutive nice guy. I said I wouldn't go off like this, so I'm going to move on. Every time I try to make faith fit into my lifestyle, I'm in for a heartbreak. Convenience is the enemy of faith. So when it gets inconvenient for you, don't try to beat it. Show God that you'll do what's necessary in spite of how convenient it is at the moment. Faith is always wrestling with practicality. It doesn't want to be practical. It doesn't want to fit into a box. It wants to break out. It's a power all its own. Faith wars against conforming to the world. Paul writes of it, he says, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That's by doing the non-conformist thing, like keeping Sunday sacred. And so we as they are sent out as sheep, he said. We go out in the midst of wolves. That's not an appealing commission, is it? your sheep, I'm sending you out, not to run away from a wolf, but in the midst of wolves. Think of that in reality, you wouldn't last a second without faith, without power, right? Hence the principle extolled on the mount that narrow is the gate, difficult is the way, and there are few who go in by it. No wonder it's like that. It's too hard. And so we, as they, are sent out as sheep and we go out in the midst of wolves And if we don't like to say, I know we don't like to say it this way, friends, but faith is simply not for everyone. You know, imagine putting that on the church marquee. Faith is not for everyone. Well, let's just keep going. It's not for those who Francis Schaeffer labeled as beholding to the two abiding principles of modernity, personal peace and affluence. If those are your gods, they will challenge your faith. When faith threatens our peace, when it causes us to strive against a tide of immorality, when it causes us to stand up in the midst of unbelievers who are angered at our insistence on the narrowness of the gate and the rarity of finding it, our peace and prosperity are threatened. And so he sent them out and he'll send us out and he'll not do so without warning. We are the sheep and the proverbial they of scripture are the wolves. He speaks of us being delivered up to councils. He says succinctly, and you will be hated. Hey, come follow me and you'll be hated. That's bold. But he's already demonstrated who he is. Come follow me and you'll be hated for my name. As soon as they find out you follow me, they'll hate you. When they persecute you, not if they persecute you, when they persecute you, In other words, I'm setting you twelve men up for this. Do not fear those who can kill the body. In other words, they're going to try to kill the body. Do not think I came to bring peace but a sword. A man's enemies will be those of his own household and he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Nowhere in there can we fit inconvenience or safety. That's what I took issue with during the COVID years. We couldn't come because it was too dangerous to come and hear the word of God. And I read the 11th chapter of Hebrews where men were devoured by lions and lived in caves and all of the things that happened. Christianity has never been safe. And so this was their burden to endure, but they did. You know, every one of them was killed except possibly John. But there are legends that John also was eventually killed for his faith. He was put on Patmos. It's conjectured that he was released and became a pastor of the Ephesus Church. But all the others were killed and we only have legends of it to tell us. It's not in scripture. I mean, James was killed by Herod in chapter 12 of Acts. We know that. It was not their commission that was hated. It was not their personalities. These were nice guys. Peter, you know, just a hard-working blue-collar guy. There's no reason to hate him. Their personalities and their commission, that wasn't what earned them the scorn. It was not the healings. Everybody loves a good healing. It wasn't the exorcism, right? Fathers came, this spirit's tormenting my son, get him out. When he exorcised him, he didn't say, I hate you for doing that. No, they would love them for it. So it wasn't all these things. So what was it? How about raising people from the dead? You don't get persecuted for that or killed for that. You get celebrated for that. It was the message, friends. It was the message that caused them to hate them. They did all the good things. Their credentials were good. They should have been loved. Jesus should never have been crucified. He should have been loved and received by his own people, right? Even the chosen people of God were those who despised the Messiah when he came. They despised him for his message. And what is the message? And why has it earned such scorn throughout the years? I think it's the twin truths of the gospel. One, there's one path to God, it's narrow and I'm it. Right? That is, in the years of modern man, very arrogant. Right? Self-righteous is only one way to God. And you know it, and I don't. The second thing is, there are few who find it. In other words, God's just not saving everybody. And I don't know how many a few is. We talked about that already. If there's a third reason why so many who claim faith will walk away from it, it's because a life of faith resists fitting into a convenient timetable, and eventually we fall away. It's just too complicated. Life's too complicated for me to fit God into my schedule. I'm going to tell you something. I have a way of doing this. I don't know if this helps or hurts, but I don't have a prayer schedule. I don't have a prayer schedule. I don't have a devotional schedule. I hold off saying this because if you have one and it works for you, keep it. I pray when I need to pray, and I go out sometimes for a long time to pray. And I do go to the woods, and I recommend it, but not instead of fellowshipping with God's people, right? One scribe asked to be included. Jesus did not focus on the positive. He focused on the negative. He said, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. You sure you want to hang out with me? Another man, a disciple, asked if he might wait for his father to die before following Jesus. And Jesus said, follow me now. Let the dead bury the dead. Put that on the church monkey. These are not compelling things that people say, you know, I gotta have me some of that. The way is not obvious. It's not easy. It's not wide or accessible or well-traveled. It's not for sycophants. Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, gets in. It's not for sycophants. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not done all these things in your name? And I will declare to them, depart from me. I never knew you. We don't see these sayings on the church marquee or the brochures or the websites. What we choose to focus on the happy things only and there are many reasons why a true disciple endures the harshness of the message and the hardness of the life of faith. The message is harsh and the life is hard. And the simple message that we've watered it down to doesn't affect society at all. There's no, you know why? There's no fear in it. There's no wrath left in it. How about God loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life, and if you don't take Him up on it, you burn in a fiery hell for eternity where the worm does not die and the fire is never quenched. How about that? As soon as we choose to make the message of the cross palatable to human... Can you imagine cleaning up the message of the cross? turning it into a little brass ornament. Make it pleasing to human eyes. Make it convenient to human schedules. It gets prioritized out of human lives. I recall a statement from President Kennedy. He spoke this in 1962 at Rice University, I believe. I'm going from memory here. He said, we do not do things because they are easy, but because they are hard. Friends, if If Americans can do it, Christians can do it, right? I believe in American exceptionalism to a degree, but not where Christianity is concerned, right? I think Christians ought to outstrip the American on the street with the hard things that he does. Do them because they are hard. It's my observation that the Christianity of the land, the Christianity of the modern era enjoys such limited influence on society because it is a convenient model of faith. The Catholic Church years ago decided to give up Sunday so you can come on Saturday night. I remember when I was a Catholic and they did this. So you go on Saturday night, right? Then you got Sunday to yourself. You know, if the Catholic Church would make Sunday sacred again. It would become that. There's so many Catholics in this area. It could really make a difference. In other words, if little Catholic kids didn't play the All-Stars game on Sundays, they wouldn't have it on Sundays. There wouldn't be any kids. But actually, what I think would happen now is they'd say, oh, the church is wrong. We're just going to do what we want anyway. That's what I've seen most of my life. The Christianity of the moment is intent on broadening the gate, lessening the difficulty of the way, and multiplying the paths. I just heard Joel Osteen, with 65,000 people in attendance, speak of the truths of Hinduism and say that it's not for him to judge the truthfulness of other faiths. Hinduism. 360 million gods. I'm not sure if they're right. They could be right. I have the one, they have the 360 million. Who am I to say? He really said this. Unless it was AI tricking me. You know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist unless I make up the conspiracy theory, but let me tell you something. You heard it here first. AI is the end of the world. There's no question about it. Oh, but it's got all these good things. Yeah, we'll see. I just heard Osteen say he sees truth in Hinduism, and I just heard Robert Kraft say that Tom Brady invented Sundays. Faith is not subject to fashion, friends. We can't go along with that kind of stuff. Fashions change with the times, with the tastes and preferences of a generation. Faith is the same today as it was yesterday. If faith can change, it's no longer faith, friends. It seems to me the church insists on putting the new wine of faith into the old wineskins of personal peace and affluence. And the wineskin has broken, and we try to put a new patch on an old garment, and the garment has pulled away, and the tear is made worse. Those are Jesus' metaphors, right? Friends, faith has an audacity about it. It demands its own way. It kicks against the goads of society. But this is why we give it. It still convicts those who hate it. It still convicts them. It tugs and pulls and insists upon its own truths. Go back to the book of Acts and see why they killed Stephen. He told them the truth about the Jews. That's why they killed him. Faith endures hardship, it conquers all. And so the Savior asks, to what shall I liken this generation? Well, it's like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions and saying, we played the flute for you and you did not dance. Jesus will not dance to our tune. We either dance to his or we dance our way into hell. The church has no more influence because it dances to someone else's tune. It marches to a different drummer. That's not Jesus, that's Henry David Thoreau who said that. It's divided against itself and every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation. The church indeed is harmless as a dove, but we've long ago given up being wise as serpents. There's no more venom in our bite. We're afraid somebody might see those dark passages. Those are too hard. And yet he's telling them, this is what you're going to endure if you go out for me, and he's telling them this. There's nothing to fear in the message of today's Christian, and there's little to disagree with. God loves you, they say, has a wonderful plan for you. I've yet to see the wonderful plan of God unfolded in the words of the Messiah from this gospel. For by your words, you will be justified, and by your words, you will be condemned. So why is religion uninfluential in the land? It's because the church has chosen to fear the wrath of man and hope that the wrath of God is no wrath at all. Right? I've had people say, oh, my God's not a God of wrath. I couldn't have a God of wrath. My God is a God of love. Well, he's both. He's both those things. Even the cross is inconvenient. If anyone desires to come to me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow after me. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? There's the guy who went for convenience his whole life and went for personal peace and affluence, right? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? And lastly, he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me. Friends, you come with the word of God on your lips, and you are received. Christ is received. It's the message. That's the thing. That's the reason they will love you or hate you. It's always the message. These men were made the emissaries of the Lord, but in the unfolding plan of God, you and I have become the emissaries. Paul wrote of this very thing. He said, now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. Who does an ambassador work for? He works for a nation. He speaks for a whole nation, or if you will, a kingdom. Right? He comes with the authority of the king. The ambassador has the same message as the king. We are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf. Be reconciled to God. That's our gospel. We go out and say, be reconciled to God. Yes, I'm an emissary of Christ. But let me send you off today with this benediction. Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For assuredly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. We are blessed to know these things. Hard sayings, yes. Blessed to know them, also yes. Father, we ask you to build our faith in such a way that we can endure to the end, oh Lord. I pray that we will not water down your words to suit the convenient lifestyle of the moment, O Lord, but that we will wrestle with God and stand in the truth, harsh as it may be, but yet truthful and loving and forever the only good news for modern man. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.