Last week was saw that Jesus looks out on the crowds, and he feels great compassion, a great stomach churning mercy. Kindness, sympathy, love, tender heartedness, all well up in his belly. The people are like sheep without a shepherd. And Jesus wants his disciples to share his worry, this burden, his tender-hearted mercy. He wants them to enter into the experience of the emotion of stomach churning compassion. So he gives his disciples a first job: to start praying. Chapter 9 verses 37 to 38:
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
That is where Jesus’ first disciples must start. And this is where we must start when we approach this passage. We must ask God to change us. God must make us like his Son, so that we have compassion on the lost. In the words of our diocesan mission, that we “call upon God for such an outpouring of his Spirit that” we would “be filled with prayerful and sacrificial compassion for the lost in all the world”.
So let’s pray.
Father, we call upon you to pour out your Spirit upon us. We pray that we, and all your people, will be assured of your love. Let us know your love that surpasses all understanding, demonstrated in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus while we were still sinners. Enable us to please our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ in all things. Change us so that we manifest the godly life. Fill us with a prayerful and sacrificial compassion for the lost in all the world. In Jesus name, Amen.
Well, Jesus is full of compassion, and he wants his disciples to be full of compassion. This requires a change of mind, emotion and will, in other words, repentance.
Now, God’s normal way of working is not to zap people. There’s a hard hearted person, a person lacking compassion. It’s not as if God thinks, “I’ll give him a ‘compassion zap’, a short sharp shock, that’s what she needs. Then they will have compassion.”
That is not the normal way God works. The normal way God works is through his word. God honours the way he makes us by speaking to us, addressing us. And as God speaks to us, His Spirit regenerates us by his word, changing our thinking, affecting our minds, convincing us of the truth of his word. We then feel as we should. We have the right emotions. And finally, we act as we should. We change our will, and do what we should. This is how God normally acts in human hearts. That is how God brings about repentance, a change of heart.
So here, Jesus himself has compassion. He sees the lost sheep. He grieves. Then he shows his 12 disciples the lost. He bids them to pray. And then he sends them out to serve them.
What’s Jesus doing by starting this process? Jesus is cloning himself. He is making his disciples like him. In fact, this is what he says. Chapter 10 verses 24 to 25:
A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant to be like his master.
Jesus is making his disciples like him. It’s a process. Jesus instructs them, teaches them, shows them. They then pray as he prays and do as he does, and they become like him. Of course, the twelve will never be complete clones of Jesus. But Jesus is multiplying his ministry by multiplying persons. And to do this, his disciples need to take on Jesus’ concerns and Jesus’ worries. They are being conformed into the image of Christ, to have the mind of Christ, to be squeezed into his mold, to become like Jesus in every way, just as Jesus became like us in every way except sin, to share his compassion, to reflect his concern, and to share in his ministry and his sufferings, and yes, even in his death.
In the end, it’s fair to say this isn’t the apostles’ mission. This is Jesus’ mission, by and through the apostles. We see this because when Jesus sends them out, Jesus doesn’t just sit back and wait for them to return. He is off doing his own mission.
In Matthew chapter 11 verse 1, after Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.
So this is Jesus’ mission. But let’s look at the missionaries he sends. Let’s have a look at the raw material he has to deal with. Who are the missionaries? They are the twelve disciples.
Each one’s name is mentioned. We see two sets of two brothers: Simon Peter and Andrew; and James and John (Matt 4:18-22). They are Galilean fishermen, and Peter rose to be the leader of the twelve. He is first among equals, in both the good and the bad. That’s just the way Peter is.
There are others. Matthew was a tax collector (Matt 9:9-13). Simon was a zealot. About the rest, Matthew only gives us their names, except for Judas, who wears the indelible label of ‘traitor’.
In other words, we are looking at a very ordinary group of men. Not many are wise by human standards, not many are influential, and not many are of noble birth. But here is Jesus, who has chosen very ordinary, rough and ready men to bear his name and carry on his mission.
What is their mission? They are ordinary men, but they have an extraordinary task. Verse 1:
[Jesus] gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
Again, verses 7 and 8:
As you go, preach this message: “The Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons.
Here we see again, the two-pronged mission of Jesus: preaching and teaching the kingdom; and healing and driving out demons.
The apostles are sent by Jesus to do what Jesus does the way Jesus does it. So much so that Jesus says of them, “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me” (Matt 10:40). The apostles are Jesus’ hands and feet.
Beware of those who divide Jesus from the apostles. Watch out for those who distinguish the sender from the sent. Many do it. We have it in the ‘Words of Jesus in Red Letter’ bibles, as if the words of Jesus are different to the words of the apostles. In that case, make all the letters in the Bible red, for Jesus sent the apostles who are responsible for the New Testament, and it was the Spirit of Christ who breathed out the Old Testament.
It’s a favorite technique of those who want to squirm out from under clear New Testament teaching. They do it by saying, “Oh, but that’s just the apostle Paul. Jesus didn’t teach that. Jesus doesn’t condemn homosexuality. Jesus doesn’t say that a woman must not teach or have authority over a man. That’s just the apostles who say such thing. That’s just Peter, or Paul, or James, or John, or Mark or Luke, their associates. And they were just men. Jesus would have thought differently.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The only Jesus we have is the apostles’ Jesus. There is no other.
Jesus also gives instructions about how they are to do mission, for the way the apostles do mission must be the way Jesus does mission. Now chapter 10 is all about how the twelve are to conduct their mission. I would like to make four points from Jesus’ instructions in chapter 10. Jesus’ instructions give us insight into the challenges of the mission.
First, the missionaries are to be generous. They must be content. They must shun greed. They are to be generous because they have received generosity. Freely they have received. The ministry of preaching and authority over illness and the demonic is a gift. They have not earned or merited it. So they must give freely. They are not to make a profit out of it. They are not to acquire gold, silver or copper.
But the missioners do have real needs: they need shelter, food, clothing. These things they should accept freely from those among whom they minister, not as payment for services rendered, but because they are human. They need to be fed, housed, and clothed for the mission. They need generous billets. “The worker is worth his keep”, says our Lord Jesus. And the villages among whom they minister must resource their workers.
And so it is with those who work hard amongst us. If we have workers, it is incumbent on us to give them what they need to do the job. Don’t make them scrounge around, to free them up for mission, to train them, encourage them, resource them, equip them, and arm them. That is the obligation of those who benefit from their work.
Second, there is an urgency about the mission. Don’t take a spare staff, or pair of shoes, or set of clothes. Travel light, go fast. Some of the detail of these instructions may only apply to this mission, or do not apply to subsequent missions. For example, at the last supper, Jesus tells the disciples now that they should take a purse, a bag, and a sword (Luke 22:35).
But the urgency remains the same. The time is short. The things we buy are not ours to keep. The things of this world must not engross us. For this world is passing away. And people made in the image of God will spend an eternity in either the City of God, or in the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
Third, be discerning. The apostles must discern. They must discern the worthy person to stay with, who will billet them. They must discern the unworthy town, to shake the dust off their feet as a sign. They must be “shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.” And so must we. We must not throw pearls before swine. We must have the wisdom to know who has rejected the gospel, and who has accepted it, who are the partners in ministry and the genuine Christians, and who are the pew sitters, the fellow travelers, and the tares among the wheat, for the time is short.
Be Warned Not Surprised (Matt 10:17-23)
Finally, Jesus says, “Beware! Be warned. Be alert, not alarmed.” People will hate you and the message you bring. Verse 22:
All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.
The name of Jesus polarizes. Some love him, and the rest hate him. So Jesus says to the missionaries “Expect hatred”. Do not fear men.
And of course, it is the same today. We must have the right expectation. Expect unpopularity. Whoever wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Otherwise we will seek to please people.
So that’s the four lessons we can learn from the mission of the twelve.
Finally, we observe the mission field. Chapter 10 verse 5:
Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel
Here is the favoritism of Jesus. He bypasses the Gentiles. He turns to the people of Israel, in the persons of his apostles. For Israel is lost. Literally, they are perishing. And the children must eat before their dogs (Matt 15:21-28). To the Syro-Phonecian woman, Jesus says he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. So the Gentiles must wait. And the question is, ‘How long?’ How long must the gentiles wait before Jesus’ turns his attention to them, before he sends his apostles to them.
And the answer is, we must wait till the end of Matthew’s gospel, till after Jesus died and rose again, and after he was rejected by Israel. For then we read the risen Lord Jesus give a new instruction to his apostles. Matthew 28:18-20:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Jesus has received universal authority. He is the ruler of the entire cosmos. Therefore, you apostles, go and disciple the gentiles, the nations.
And they did. They discipled the gentiles. They taught us. That’s why we have their teaching in the New Testament. They did their job.
And we are their descendants. They have past the mission on to us. That’s the point of “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” That’s where we come in. We are the apostle’s successors in continuing the mission of Jesus on earth. That is what we are called to, and nothing less than that: Go, make disciples, baptize, teach. That is our job, too.
Let’s pray.