Fall 2018 Sermon Series: Laborers into the Harvest September 16, 2018

Matthew 10:1-15 Lessons from the Early Harvest And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is 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 Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received without paying; give without pay. Acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. And whatever town or village you enter, find out who is worthy in it and stay there until you depart. As you enter the house, greet it. And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.“

Jesus’ Diverse and Unified Labor Force In 9:38, Jesus told His followers to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” In 10:1-7, He called His twelve disciples to Him, gave them authority to cast out demons and to heal diseases, and sent them out to tell the lost sheep of Israel that the kingdom was at hand. Jesus’ group of twelve apostles is noteworthy for a number of reasons. Allow me to highlight a few of those reasons here. The twelve included two sets of brothers (Peter and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, James and John). Peter, prone to be impetuous, is the most well known and revered disciple but he’s also the one who eventually denied Jesus three times (Matthew 26:69ff). James and John were in Christ’s most inner circle of followers, but they also maneuvered to have a high position next to Jesus in His kingdom. This move garnered some disdain among their fellow disciples (Matthew 20:20ff; Mark 10:35ff). Simon the Cananaean, or zealot, was likely a pro-Israel patriot, zealous for Roman occupation to be ended, the Davidic kingdom to be reestablished, and the Law to be faithfully followed in the land. In contrast, Matthew was a (former) tax collector, meaning he previously worked in conjunction with the Romans to fund their occupation efforts and his own lavish lifestyle with money taken unjustly from his own people. Tax collectors were particularly despised among the people of Israel. Simon, as a zealot, would have likely had a particular disgust towards tax collectors. Finally, Jesus called Judas Iscariot, who would become His betrayer. Jesus called to Himself twelve very different men from Israel to go and proclaim the kingdom to all of the lost twelve tribes.

Jesus is still calling to Himself, and sending into the harvest, all kinds of people. We in the Church come with varied gifts and flaws. We have different temperaments and diverse cultural and family backgrounds. Some of us struggle with certain sins more than others. A lot of us have strong views of what the Church should be and those views don’t always match those of our pew mates. So what is it that draws us all together? Who is it that makes us one people? The answer is Jesus Christ alone. The fact that He works in and through the weak, the impetuous, the presumptuous, the zealous, the sinful, and even the traitorous to further His kingdom says much about His redemptive power to transform us individually and to make us into a unified people to His own glory.

Jesus Commissions His Laborers Jesus exercised His authority as the Messiah, the incarnate Son of God, in a variety of ways. It was His authority that distinguished His teaching from that of the scribes (7:28-29). He had authority to heal diseases and afflictions, even when He wasn’t immediately present with the sick person (8:8-9). He had authority over nature, seen when He calmed a storm (8:26). He had authority over the supernatural as well, as seen when He cast out demons (8:28-32). He even had the authority to forgive sins (9:1-8). Jesus had all of this authority because of Who He is and because of the purpose His Father in heaven commissioned Him to carry out. But, in His humanity, Jesus was limited by the restrictions He had taken on in the body. He could not be everywhere at once. God, in His sovereign and perfect will, determined to work through the means of other agents as well. To that end, Jesus, in commissioning them, gave His twelve apostles a measure of His own authority to cast out demons and to heal all manner of sicknesses and afflictions. Just as a monarch, president, or governor can invest a minister, ambassador, or secretary with the authority to act on his behalf, so too did Jesus invest the twelve with the authority to carry out His work on this particular mission. Eventually the apostles

Fall 2018 Sermon Series: Laborers into the Harvest September 16, 2018(Judas being rightly replaced by Matthias, and Paul added to their ranks) would bear the authority to build the Church through Word (the writings of some of the apostles and their close followers making up the New Testament) and deed (performing many of the same kinds of miracles Christ displayed during His own earthly ministry).

While the era of the apostles closed with this first generation of men, the apostolic ministry continues in and through the Church as Jesus calls to Himself a diverse and unified people. He invests His authority in the Church corporately to further His kingdom purposes through the ministries of Word (teaching and preaching from what the apostles have passed down to us in the scriptures) and deed (loving others and seeking to meet their temporal needs through the spiritual and natural gifts God has entrusted to us).

The Extent and Purpose of Jesus’ Initial Harvest Jesus sent this first group of apostolic evangelists to the lost sheep of Israel (v. 6). In doing so, He wasn’t forever excluding Gentiles from His kingdom, which is made clear elsewhere, most notably at the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). However, His focus at the time was upon the people of Israel who had lost their way and needed to be shepherded to return to God. This focus limited His present ministry to Israel, chiefly to the region of Galilee. It is good for us to glean from this that there are viable reasons for us to narrow our focus at times in order to maximize our ministry effectiveness. A father should have a primary focus of raising his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. A pastor and elders should rightly understand their chief ministry vision to be for their own flock, seeking to guide those who are spiritually strong and pursuing those who are weak and wayward. As citizens of our local community we should embrace the ministry of being Gospel-minded neighbors to all kinds of people on our streets, in our schools, workplaces, etc. This doesn’t mean we ignore the needs of distant lands and people but it does mean we seek the wisdom of the Spirit to show us, as individuals and as a congregation, those areas where we are most sent to do Christ’s work and focus our resources there.

The ministry of the Word is to be the primary purpose of Christ’s Church and His people when we go to our homes, our church, our neighborhoods, our schools, our workplaces, and to the ends of the earth to do Gospel ministry. While we go to proclaim the good news of Jesus through word ministry to others we must also be attentive to the physical, material, emotional, and relational needs they have, and we must lovingly help them in every way we can through deeds (1 John 3:16-18). Nonetheless, our primary purpose is always to point them to Jesus.

Jesus Provides for and Prepares His Laborers In vv. 9-15, Jesus taught His disciples about trusting in God to provide for their needs. On their particular mission, they were told to expect God’s provision through the hospitality of the people to whom they went to minister “for the laborer deserves his food.” This means of provision was established in Old Testament teaching about hospitality and it was to be an indication of welcoming home’s faith in God and their grasping the hope of the kingdom message Christ was proclaiming through His apostles. But not all hearers of the Word would be found worthy. Some would reject the kingdom message and the apostles as Christ’s messengers, even some who initially received them. Jesus told them how to handle such rejection. We should rightly glean from this portion of the passage the need for us to trust the Lord to provide for the ministries to which He calls and sends us. We should also note the teaching that the Gospel and those who proclaim it will not be universally received with peace and joy. We will at times be rejected by the very ones with whom we are seeking to share the good news of eternal life.

Discussion and Application 1. How has God grown you by putting you in the company of people with diverse personalities, family and social backgrounds,

political views, etc. within His Church and unifying you with one another by the grace of Christ?

2. What is the nature of the Church’s authority in Gospel ministry today? How can FPC grow in rightly exercising this authority? How can you, individually, rightly exercise Christ’s authority in ministering the Gospel to others?

3. Pray with one another for God to show you the extent of the harvest field to which He has sent you to carry out His kingdom ministry in Christ.

4. Pray for Christ to grow you in trusting the provision of the Lord, even in the face of rejection by others because of the Gospel.