SPEAKER_00: This morning, Mark chapter 6, verses 7 to 13.
SPEAKER_00: My title is Dynamic Duos.
SPEAKER_00: Dynamic Duos.
SPEAKER_00: So there's often something exciting about doing something the very first time.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us might can remember the first time you got behind the steering wheel of a car or a truck or an SUV to drive with your driver's license.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might can remember the first time that you stepped onto an airplane and you flew for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: And as I say that, some of you are thinking, I'm never going to have a first time flying because you're a scaredy cat and you just don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I stepped foot on the campus of D.H.
SPEAKER_00: Connolly High School.
SPEAKER_00: It was August 1st, 1978.
SPEAKER_00: It was the beginning of football practice.
SPEAKER_00: I had never played a down of football in my life, but I had won multiple Super Bowls by watching it on TV.
SPEAKER_00: I just knew that I was destined for the NFL.
SPEAKER_00: I showed up on that campus.
SPEAKER_00: I did not know a single soul.
SPEAKER_00: But I wanted to play football.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I remember the first time that uh Jennifer and I started becoming a thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's my freshman year at Bible College, and uh we are both attending the Naikomi Missions Retreat.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like the retreat center was about 30 minutes from the campus.
SPEAKER_00: And on, I think it was the opening night, and uh the service is about to begin, and I walked in from the back and I noticed that Jennifer is sitting about four or five rows from the front.
SPEAKER_00: There's a seat on the end that is open, and then there's Jennifer, and then there's her sister Rhonda, her next oldest sibling.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: So I went up and I said, Hey, I was just wondering, um, is that seat safe for anybody?
SPEAKER_00: She said no.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Would you mind if I sit there?
SPEAKER_00: She said, Yes, by all means.
SPEAKER_00: And so I would later find out that she had saved that seat, hoping I would sit there.
SPEAKER_00: And the rest is history.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're just a few days away from 41 years of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: In our biblical text, we're going to see the disciples, the apostles, being sent out for the very first time.
SPEAKER_00: They've spent approximately two years with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They have observed him model living the life.
SPEAKER_00: They have heard him teach, and they've they've learned certain things.
SPEAKER_00: And now it's time for them to apply what they have learned.
SPEAKER_00: And so there are some things about our text this morning that will not apply to us.
SPEAKER_00: There were certain things about the commissioning of the apostles, their giftedness, the time in which they were on the scene of establishing the church that don't apply to us.
SPEAKER_00: But I think there are any number of things that will certainly be beneficial.
SPEAKER_00: If you were here last Sunday, you'll recall that Jesus for the second time had gone back to Nazareth.
SPEAKER_00: He had revisited the people that had known him from childhood.
SPEAKER_00: It did not go well at all.
SPEAKER_00: The verbal slurs they threw with him, the offense that they took, they basically said, You're not welcome here in Adios.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus goes on and continues to teach and preach and minister in other cities.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to read what's going to happen next.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to read the whole text, and then we'll go back and revisit it about some things that I believe do apply to us today.
SPEAKER_00: So Mark chapter 6, beginning in verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: And he called Jesus, he called the twelve, that is the 12 apostles, and began to send them out two by two.
SPEAKER_00: And he gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
SPEAKER_00: He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.
SPEAKER_00: And if any place will not receive you, and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.
SPEAKER_00: So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.
SPEAKER_00: And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, commissioning the twelve apostles, they had the giftedness for a certain period of time to perform miracles.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have that giftedness today, okay?
SPEAKER_00: That's just not a part of this era.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has the spiritual gift to heal people instantly, miraculously.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean God doesn't heal.
SPEAKER_00: That means that he doesn't still do that whenever he chooses to in his sovereignty, but nobody today has that spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_00: Still, there are certain principles that are timeless that I believe we can easily draw that will be beneficial for us to help advance God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So that's my purpose in preaching the balance of my sermon is to share with you five ways to effectively advance God's kingdom, five principles that are timeless.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, accept responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be involved at all in helping to advance the kingdom of God, the cause of Christ, you've got to accept responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the original apostles were sent out, so are we.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these men, the original 12 and a handful of others who would join them as capital A apostles, the word apostle comes from a verb that means to send out.
SPEAKER_00: And so basically, we are little A apostles because we also have been sent out.
SPEAKER_00: We might not have been by the campfire when Jesus is given the game plan before he sends them out, but we are sent.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: It's for all believers, not just those who were there when Jesus verbally gave it in real time.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Commission in Matthew, go therefore.
SPEAKER_00: All of us go therefore and make disciples of all the peoples of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You and I, I want to urge you, accept responsibility to go and tell somebody when provided the right opportunities, and sometimes the opportunities are right there, and we just shun them, but look for opportunities to urge people to put their faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You are not exempt.
SPEAKER_00: Whomever you are, you might have some hurdles to cross that other people might not have.
SPEAKER_00: But you are to reset responsibility for being a person who advances God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the message.
SPEAKER_00: The message has not changed.
SPEAKER_00: The message that they were to go out and proclaim, and granted, they might have done it more as professional preachers, heralds of the truth, not unlike preachers, missionaries, evangelists still do today.
SPEAKER_00: But you can still tell people the truth about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And folks, they're not going to like it.
SPEAKER_00: Some people will not like it.
SPEAKER_00: But if we were to take one word and summarize the message of John the Baptist, the message of Jesus, and the message that Jesus commissions the original 12, it's the word repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Repentance.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them there in verse 12, they went out and proclaimed that people should repent, turn from their sin, turn from their wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, if God forbid that I do, but if I stop including the words repent and repentance in the vocabulary of my preaching, then I have stopped preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Something's gone on in my mind, or man, I uh I don't I don't want to think about any other possibilities.
SPEAKER_00: Um repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Unless and until a person repents of his or her sin, they cannot be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: But the beauty is because of Jesus, anybody who does repent can be forgiven of any and all of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not explicitly stated in our text, but there has to be behind it a sense of urgency.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the urgency in Paul's words to the Corinthian believers in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: We, all believers, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us, not just through me, not just through preachers and missionaries, but all believers, God making his appeal through us.
SPEAKER_00: We implore you, urgency on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, what an honor.
SPEAKER_00: So whenever I'm I'm away from here, and maybe I'm I'm attending a conference or I'm at our national convention and maybe I'm meeting somebody uh for the first time and I introduce myself, hey, my name is Jeff, and what's yours, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And that person says, Where do you pastor?
SPEAKER_00: Folks, I'm serious, I'm serious.
SPEAKER_00: It is an honor.
SPEAKER_00: It is an honor for me to be able to say, I pastor Unity Church in Greenville, North Carolina.
SPEAKER_00: But infinitely more so, we've all got the honor as Christians to be able to say, I represent Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a representative of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you're trying to battle the fear and the nerves, and you're trying to make sure you accept responsibility to talk to people about the gospel, to talk to people about Jesus, just be reminded of who you represent.
SPEAKER_00: You're an ambassador of Jesus, not merely a president of a country.
SPEAKER_00: You're the ambassador of the God of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: Urgency.
SPEAKER_00: There's got to be involved, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we as a church, and most of you know we believe this, we believe in the imminent return of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that Christ could come back and rapture the church at any moment.
SPEAKER_00: It could happen before I finish this sentence or this sermon.
SPEAKER_00: So if that's true, and it is, when that happens, as many of you know, especially we went through the book of Revelation however many months ago, cataclysmic events, irreversible things are going to happen thereafter, and it's gonna be hell on earth.
SPEAKER_00: The Antichrist will be made known.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing that that's coming, and knowing, I don't have time to explain it, but knowing that some people, when Jesus comes, their fate will be sealed.
SPEAKER_00: They will have already had an opportunity to get saved, they will have rejected it, and then when Jesus, at that moment, their fate will be.
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't that give us a sense of urgency?
SPEAKER_00: How do you not know?
SPEAKER_00: Also, um, your your family, your friends, your co-workers, your neighbors, your teammates, when are they gonna die?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't know?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's exactly the point.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know either.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, do you really do you want to shirk your responsibility having already been convicted numerous times about somebody in particular and you've not yet talked to them about their soul, talked to them about their need of repentance?
SPEAKER_00: Do you really want to run the risk of maybe getting a memo, getting a phone call, however, your business, however, your neighborhood uh communicates with people to find out that you know what, we're we're sorry to report.
SPEAKER_00: But Sally is no longer with us.
SPEAKER_00: She was involved in a horrible head-on collision, drunk driver.
SPEAKER_00: She's gone.
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to have to attend the funeral and think her blood or his blood is on your hands?
SPEAKER_00: Accept responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna if you're gonna be an effective advancer of God's kingdom, accept responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, exercise interdependency.
SPEAKER_00: Exercise interdependency.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a big word, but it's not all that complicated when we get down to it.
SPEAKER_00: When the Lord sent out the original twelve, he did so two by two.
SPEAKER_00: That that's actually where my sermon title is coming from.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word for two is duo, and so dynamic duos.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus sent them out two by two.
SPEAKER_00: Now, um, just use your sanctified imagination with me.
SPEAKER_00: Let's imagine that it's around a campfire, they've had a long day of ministry and they're having dinner, and Jesus says, Now, fellas, tomorrow is gonna be a major shift in how we've been doing things for the past couple of months, I mean the past couple of years.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I'm sending you out two by two.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as he said that, come on, don't you know they probably thought, oh snap, who's he gonna pair me up with?
SPEAKER_00: You you know probably Peter's thinking, uh man, I bet he puts me with doubting Thomas.
SPEAKER_00: That dude is always looking at the cup half full, if not even empty.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm a part of a discipleship group.
SPEAKER_00: There's me and nine other guys.
SPEAKER_00: We went to a discipleship conference back in February, and we're from all over the country, and one is a missionary from Japan, and uh we went to the greater Nashville area for this conference, and we all got a big Airbnb house.
SPEAKER_00: And when we were talking about that, I told them on a Zoom call, we have a Zoom call every Thursday morning at 8:30.
SPEAKER_00: I said, now fellas, I can go ahead and tell you.
SPEAKER_00: I have reached the stage of life, I ain't sleeping in a bed with not ne'er one of you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so take that concept and you can relate to it.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus saying, 'I'm gonna send you out two by two, and you're thinking, 'oh, brother, don't you know that Simon the zealot, who was a man who could not stand the Roman government, I kind of gotta think that Jesus paired him up with Matthew, who had collected taxes on behalf of the Roman government.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine those two sitting in the same room together, having to sleep in a double bed together?
SPEAKER_00: Um, so the question then is why why did Jesus send them out two by two but not one by one?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it could have covered more territory one-on-one.
SPEAKER_00: Well, for starters, Ecclesiastes 4-9 says two are better than one.
SPEAKER_00: And two are better than one for a variety of reasons that I think apply to why Jesus did this two by two.
SPEAKER_00: It provides greater accountability.
SPEAKER_00: Like iron sharpens iron, the two bro two brothers could go out and keep each other accountable.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, come, hey, Peter, Peter, come on, bud.
SPEAKER_00: You need to you need to tone it down a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: You you your your veins were popping out too much when you were talking yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Um accountability.
SPEAKER_00: Um today was encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, come on, Thomas, come on, bud.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I know, I know yesterday was hard.
SPEAKER_00: And I I know that somebody said something they should not have said.
SPEAKER_00: They responded inappropriately, but come on, man, you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna depend upon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one we're representing him.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Two together, they could pray with each other, call each other's name out in verbal, audible prayer.
SPEAKER_00: They could bear one another's burdens, um, they could help protect each other's testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Invariably, don't you know Satan with his um cunning, crafty ways, would maybe motivate somebody to tell a lie?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what happened, Your Honor.
SPEAKER_00: I was there.
SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind, in the Jewish first century, two witnesses were required to establish a viable witness in the court of law.
SPEAKER_00: That's that is not what happened.
SPEAKER_00: I was there.
SPEAKER_00: I saw it, that's not what happened.
SPEAKER_00: So, for a variety of reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we're going to effectively advance God's kingdom, we must do it interdependently, not separately or independently.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot take the American mindset of independence and I'll do it my way.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: I can't have that mentality, and I don't think I do.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I am so thankful.
SPEAKER_00: There are four other full-time pastors on staff here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just me, it's me and those guys, along with a couple of women who were playing vital roles as men, our women's ministry coordinator, ladies who were helping out with our accessible disciples, along with scores of you who were doing what all you do.
SPEAKER_00: So we work interdependently.
SPEAKER_00: The body of Christ, the church, it's likened in scripture to the human body.
SPEAKER_00: My body is one body, but I've got multiple parts.
SPEAKER_00: My eyes cannot say to my ears, hey man, I don't need you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty enough.
SPEAKER_00: Who cares what people are saying?
SPEAKER_00: I don't need you.
SPEAKER_00: My hand cannot say to my feet, I don't need you.
SPEAKER_00: My heart cannot say to my head, I don't need you, brain.
SPEAKER_00: And nobody, nobody in the in the whole cause of Christ should look at anybody and think, I don't need you.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you do.
SPEAKER_00: You're all gifted, you've all got gifts and abilities.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: God gifted me to be a blessing to you.
SPEAKER_00: And He gifted you to be a blessing to me.
SPEAKER_00: We're all gifted to be blessings one to another.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way God designed it.
SPEAKER_00: So don't you dare have an inferiority complex, man.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just little old me.
SPEAKER_00: Together with the rest of us, man, we can do more to advance the cause of Christ than if we just tried to do it all on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, a third way to effectively advance God's kingdom, exercise dependency.
SPEAKER_00: This does not contradict, it complements exercise dependency.
SPEAKER_00: So the 12 were sent out with the bare essentials, uh, with no bread, no bag, no money in their belts.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they were supposed to take one staff, one pair of sandals, and one tunic.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: No suitcase, not even a carry-on bag or a change of clothes.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I must say I had somebody share this with me after the first service, and it was such a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I'd share it with you.
SPEAKER_00: The reason that God called men to be apostles is because there ain't no way in the world the women could have gone with just one pair of shoes.
SPEAKER_00: That was not me, I'm quoting somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Um, these apostles, and by the way, I it's it's a little further down in my notes, but um Jesus was not issuing the way it's supposed to be from here on.
SPEAKER_00: These were unusual circumstances, and he is teaching them, he is getting them to experience firsthand what they heard him preach earlier at the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: When in Matthew chapter 6, verse 30 and 31, 31 to 33, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?
SPEAKER_00: For the Gentiles seek after all those things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
SPEAKER_00: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
SPEAKER_00: They needed to experience that sheer dependency upon the Lord to meet all of our needs.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm afraid, I'm afraid that most of us have rarely ever exercised that kind of dependency upon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us have plenty of money.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we're all equally rich, but most of us have plenty of money.
SPEAKER_00: I I I I would be surprised, and I and please I I ask for your forgiveness ahead of time if I've missed somebody, overlooked somebody, but I would be very surprised if anybody in this room has been truly hungry, hungry, because you didn't have any money to buy any food for an extended period of time.
SPEAKER_00: We so now these stringent stipulations they were temporary, and the Bible nowhere requires God's people to take vows of poverty to be servants of the church.
SPEAKER_00: No, and by the way, it's not a sin to have a lot of money in and of itself, it's not a sin to be wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're going to be effective representatives of the Lord and our King, we must learn dependency upon the Lord and take self-sufficiency and slay it.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like every single Sunday, I've been doing this, quote unquote, been doing this for over 30 years.
SPEAKER_00: And yet every Sunday, man, I'm up here when when I'm when I'm up here about to grab the pulpit to turn it around, and Kevin or whomever's praying, I'm saying, oh God, please, oh God, my God, I need you.
SPEAKER_00: I need you.
SPEAKER_00: We all need to put ourselves in a position where we are dependent upon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: That's not gonna happen unless you take a risk.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you take a risk.
SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, it's it's been a long, long time since you took a risk for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Um Probably some of you have never taken the risk.
SPEAKER_00: Now, biblically, it's really not a risk, but some of you have never taken the risk to give faithfully to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe others of you you've never taken the risk to give sacrificially on some occasions.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a missionary came and God stirred your heart and you felt like he was asking you for the next three years to give another$100 a month.
unknown: Really?
SPEAKER_00: You didn't take the risk.
SPEAKER_00: When Jeremy promotes life groups, and maybe when he makes some phone calls in staff meetings, sometimes we get together and we're thinking about maybe who might be a good life group leader, a small group leader, and you get a phone call and you're asked and you say no.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe asked to host a group in your home and you say no.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, people, are you are you willing to do whatever God's will might be for your life that it may involve a risk?
SPEAKER_00: Loving people, investing in people, that's risky.
SPEAKER_00: But it's required.
SPEAKER_00: So to put ourselves in a position where we exercise utter dependency upon the Lord, we need to take some risks, some faith risks.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's go back to verse 10 real quick.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there.
SPEAKER_00: So why why that stipulation?
SPEAKER_00: Granted, the text does not expressly tell us, but I think we can figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: So the men go out two by two.
SPEAKER_00: They go to this community, and according to the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, I mean uh Matthew and Luke, who are synoptic gospels with very similar to Mark, they tell us that when they go to these new towns and communities, they're to look for a person of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody that's open to the gospel, somebody who's open to the hard reality of needing to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who's open to Jesus possibly being the true Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And if you find such a person of peace, and as you're conversing, they were to say, Well, do you need a place to stay?
SPEAKER_00: Keep in mind, in this day, the first century Jewish culture, they didn't have hotels on every corner like we do.
SPEAKER_00: The ones they did have, oh, buddy buddy, you were almost in more harm staying there than you were staying on the street.
SPEAKER_00: So suppose the person said, Hey, would you guys like to stay with me?
SPEAKER_00: Hospitality was very highly valued.
SPEAKER_00: And the guys say, Sure.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: We're indebted to you.
SPEAKER_00: So they go.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe on day two, they're preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There's a prominent businessman, very prominent.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows his name.
SPEAKER_00: His name is big letters on front of his business.
SPEAKER_00: And he hears the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And he's very receptive.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Guys, how about would y'all mind joining my wife and me?
SPEAKER_00: We've got two teenage boys.
SPEAKER_00: Would you mind joining us for dinner?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we'd love to.
SPEAKER_00: Go and you have dinner.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, by the way, forgive me for not having already asked, but where are you guys staying?
SPEAKER_00: Please, please don't tell me you're staying, you're not staying in that flea bitten hotel down there on the left corner, right?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you're not staying there.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why don't you stay with us?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're talking about two pools: a pool to swim in and a pool to play, pool on, pool table.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about jacuzzi, hot tub, separate rooms, separate baths, the whole nine yards.
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, you're sleeping in the same bed at the first place.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, Don't you even think about leaving where you are and going over there?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine going back and saying, hey, you know, Billy Bob businessman, he's invited us to his place.
SPEAKER_00: And so um, I mean, we we appreciate the hospitality, but we're gonna stay there the next three nights.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: I guess my guess my place is not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: In addition, I think what he's also teaching them is to learn contentment.
SPEAKER_00: To learn contentment.
SPEAKER_00: Look, you you go.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sending you out.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be dependent upon me.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever you stay, you stay there until it's time to move on.
SPEAKER_00: And you stay content.
SPEAKER_00: Um, uh, one of the most misquoted passages in all the Bible is Philippians 4, verses 11 to 13.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I have learned, and you do have to learn contentment.
SPEAKER_00: It does not come naturally.
SPEAKER_00: I have learned in whatever situation I'm in to be content.
SPEAKER_00: I know how to be brought low, I know how to abound.
SPEAKER_00: In any and every circumstance, I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
SPEAKER_00: And in that context of being man at at Billy Bob Businessman's house or sweet Bob's house, who's barely making ends meet, but he's fed you and all, I have learned that I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is teaching them to be content.
SPEAKER_00: He's teaching us dependency upon the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and by the way, before we move on to number four, if Jesus were sending his men out today, would your home be available?
SPEAKER_00: Would you be willing to be inconvenienced for two or three nights for the cause of Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Number four, a fourth way to advance God's kingdom effectively.
SPEAKER_00: Express mercy and sympathy.
SPEAKER_00: So Mark tells us in verse 7 that Jesus gave the apostles power over the unclean spirits.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, the apostles cast many demons out.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 also tells us the apostles had the authority to heal the sick.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew's parallel account of the same occasion, he tells us that Christ authorized them to raise the dead.
SPEAKER_00: So, why would Christ grant such authority and power to these men?
SPEAKER_00: Two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, to authenticate them as agents of revelation.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you're going into these places you've never been before, and you're going to boldly tell people they need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Who gives you the authority?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives us that authority.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how in the world do we know that you've got some kind of mess?
SPEAKER_00: Sir, were you here yesterday?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've known Susie, you've known Susie all your life.
SPEAKER_00: You've known her longer than she's known you.
SPEAKER_00: Did you see what happened when Susie's shriveled leg?
SPEAKER_00: How long did she say it was?
SPEAKER_00: Like 13 years, her leg's been all shriveled up.
SPEAKER_00: And by God's amazing power, we we were able to heal her.
SPEAKER_00: You saw that.
SPEAKER_00: Authentic, bona fide miracles authenticated them as messengers from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But there was a second reason involved in this, and that was to demonstrate God's heart of mercy and compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Think about all the ways God could have manifested himself, but in one of the ways he did it most often was relieving people of their demon possession, of relieving people of their pain and their suffering and their deformities, of in some cases bringing people back from the dead so tears could go from tears of sorrow to tears of joy.
SPEAKER_00: So we're told that the disciples, the apostles anointed many with oil and were healed.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel never tells us that Jesus did anything with oil.
SPEAKER_00: So why did they do it with oil?
SPEAKER_00: Well, again, we're not explicitly told.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but oil was used medicinally in the first century, not to mention in the Old Testament context as well.
SPEAKER_00: But there's no medicinal usage here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus never used oil.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he didn't use oil to heal at all, but there's no medicinal connotation.
SPEAKER_00: Almost all Bible scholars are in agreement that when they put that oil on, it was their way of communicating symbolically, rich symbolism.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is full of it, richly symbolizing.
SPEAKER_00: Look, this power to tell Susie, rise up and walk, take up your bed and walk, it didn't come from us.
SPEAKER_00: It comes from above, it comes from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to just put this oil on her to represent the fact it ain't about us, it's about him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these miraculous healings, demon exorcisms and resurrections, they were not done to impress, they were done to express mercy and compassion.
SPEAKER_00: All throughout the scriptures, we see people crying out in sorrow and agony, tears, wailings, and sometimes wondering, God, do you hear?
SPEAKER_00: God, do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he does.
SPEAKER_00: He always has, and he still does today.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let anybody uh cause you to think that God's oblivious to all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is not here now to touch people and heal them.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not here now to tell the centurion servant from afar, you're restored to health.
SPEAKER_00: Rise up and be well.
SPEAKER_00: But we are.
SPEAKER_00: And we're his hands and feet.
SPEAKER_00: And no, we do not have, nope, nobody has the gift of healing today.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has been authorized to lay their hands on somebody and say, in the name of Jesus, your legs be restored, your heart murmur disappear.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: But man, we can be there when they're hurting, and we can be the hands and the arms of Jesus to love people and to comfort them in a way that can help maybe lead to the gospel being shared if they don't know it already.
SPEAKER_00: Um think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 86, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 145, verses 8 and 9, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.
SPEAKER_00: Mark 6, 34 is going to remind us that when Jesus saw multitudes, he was moved with compassion.
SPEAKER_00: And then listen to 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3 and 4.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
SPEAKER_00: Folks, there will always be people to minister to.
SPEAKER_00: There are always going to be people who are hurting and suffering and just wondering, like Kevin often says, or whomever's doing the introductory stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Did you feel like maybe nobody cares?
SPEAKER_00: Let's make sure we, let's make sure that we individually and we collectively don't give anybody a reason to think.
SPEAKER_00: And let's let's let's let's exercise mercy, sympathy, and in some cases, empathy.
SPEAKER_00: Number five, a fifth way to effectively advance God's kingdom is to exercise tenacity.
SPEAKER_00: Exercise tenacity.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus told the men in verse 11 if any place, that is, any home, any village, any community, if they will not receive you and will not listen to you, when you leave, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, uh in the in the Jewish culture of that first century, in their context, having been given the promised land, having now settled in Israel, in its borders, this is where God's people are supposed to be taken care of.
SPEAKER_00: When they ventured outside the city limits, the national limits, and they went into other countries.
SPEAKER_00: When they came back, they would have taken their sandals off, literally, to remind themselves symbolically, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna bring the filth of a pagan world back home with me.
SPEAKER_00: It was to remind them, you saw some things, you heard some things, you've been introduced to some things, you didn't you didn't know sin could be done like that.
SPEAKER_00: When you come back, shake that dust off.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be a reminder.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be influenced by pagans.
SPEAKER_00: So I do that kind of thing every time I go through Chapel Hill.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not like just every now and then you've got to make sure everybody's still with you.
SPEAKER_00: The twelve were sent to these Jewish communities and homes.
SPEAKER_00: If people did not receive them, we don't believe this Jesus person is anybody we should be even considering to be the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And if indeed that their resistance was continual and maybe a little abusive, okay, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't come to argue.
SPEAKER_00: And then you leave, and in my mind, the people that they are doing this to are watching them.
SPEAKER_00: Take their sandals off.
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like they were saying, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: If you give us a pagan response, we're gonna treat you like a pagan.
SPEAKER_00: And people that had that done to them, they thought, this is serious.
SPEAKER_00: This is serious.
SPEAKER_00: Um, in conjunction with that, listen to what else Jesus said.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, if you were following along in your Bibles, it might have been there at the end of verse 11, but it's not in all translations because it's not in some of the uh older, better manuscripts, what I'm about to share.
SPEAKER_00: But Matthew's gospel does have it, so definitely we should consider it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Matthew 10, verses 14 and 15.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone does not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet, and you leave that town, that house or town.
SPEAKER_00: Truly I say to you, this this was the message that they were sending.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you probably know Sodom and Gomorrah, they were synonymous with wickedness.
SPEAKER_00: They were as wicked as any community of people in the whole Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus is saying, here in the first century, here I am.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one that has been prophesied about.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: These miracles authenticate.
SPEAKER_00: And if you say no, it's gonna be worse for you at the judgment.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 15 alone lets us know judgment day's coming, day of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's gonna stand before God at one of two places.
SPEAKER_00: Christians at the great, I mean Christians at the judgment seat of Christ, unbelievers at the great white throne judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And not everybody's judgment's gonna be the same.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that hell will be worse for some people than for others?
SPEAKER_00: That that verse alone teaches that, that there are varying degrees of suffering in hell.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how sobering should this truth be for us living in the 21st century?
SPEAKER_00: In the good old US of A?
SPEAKER_00: When you think about how nice it is to live close to a Walmart and a Lowe's and grocery stores, etc., don't forget the privilege of having such easy access to Bible studies, um, Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, most of us have got multiple Bibles in our home, multiple translations.
SPEAKER_00: We've sat through Bible studies after Bible studies.
SPEAKER_00: We can we can either attend a church with good preaching and teaching, or in some cases, that's no excuse.
SPEAKER_00: You can listen to podcasts of some of the best preaching in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And with all of that, we're gonna be held accountable.
SPEAKER_00: Going to be held accountable.
SPEAKER_00: So doing ministry can be hard.
SPEAKER_00: And some people will uh treat you disrespectfully, tell you to get lost, don't ever come back here again.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever talk to me about Jesus again.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, you've got co-workers, you can talk to them about the weather, you can talk to them about sports, you need to talk to them about politics, but you can't talk to them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so with that in mind, uh Bill Highsmith, over 30, almost 35 years ago, he gave me a little um saying that has actually kind of um stuck with me ever since.
SPEAKER_00: When you're feeling discouraged, maybe you're battling depression, you're um you're in the slew of despond, you want to keep on serving your Lord, but you just find yourself, you know, having the druid disease.
SPEAKER_00: I give you tigapah.
SPEAKER_00: Tigapaw.
SPEAKER_00: You've never heard of that word, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not a word, it's an acrostic.
SPEAKER_00: It stands for trust in God and push ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Tigapah.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in God and push ahead.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 2.2.
SPEAKER_00: Though we were already, though we have already suffered and been shamefully entreated at Philippi as you know, we were, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict.
SPEAKER_00: And one that maybe all of us are familiar with, 1 Corinthians 15, 58.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor is not in vain.
SPEAKER_00: I I firmly believe that the vast majority of you, you want to be about the kingdom's business.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be about your father's business, you want to be effective in trying to promote the cause of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We've got five five principles that'll help us do it.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow before the Lord now and just ask him to help you exercise these truths?
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for your word and how it teaches us, how it confronts us.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it convicts, sometimes it comforts.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're challenged.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I I I sense that your people have been challenged this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, for those of us who do have a heart's desire to advance the cause of Christ, to advance his kingdom, help us to put aside our excuses, help us to take some risks that will result in us being dependent upon you like you want us to be anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, may we stay interdependently connected one to another.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, help us to take responsibility for being an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, give us the courage to share the gospel with somebody even today, this week.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that in Jesus' name and for his sake and glory.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.