Luke 9:1-9
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke chapter 9. Our reading today is Luke chapter
9 verses 1 through 9. The ministry of the Lord Jesus
is shifting before our eyes. Today we see him not go out and
do the ministry that we’ve seen him do, but he sends out his
12 apostles. And so there’s a shift in his
ministry. There’s another shift that’s
soon to come as his ministry in Galilee wraps up. Jesus will
shift his ministry over to Judea or the area surrounding Jerusalem. And so as you make your way through
Luke and if you were to follow Luke through his writings to
Acts. We see a lot of different ways ministry takes place. And
one of the things I want you to take note of today is in your
thinking, and I’ll point this out a little bit more in just
a bit, but in your thinking, we have to remember God in former
times has ministered in different ways. And in some cases, it may
be through Jesus. It may be through the prophets.
It may be through kings or priests. And in this case, it’s through
apostles. But today he ministers through
his church. The Lord Jesus in Ephesians chapter
four, it says ascended up on high. And when Jesus ascended
up on high into heaven, he gave gifts to his church. Those gifts
were the ministers of the word, the deacons and the elders and
every member to do the work of the ministry. And so as we think
on this passage today, one of the things you don’t want to
do is say, Oh, they did it. So we should be doing it this
way. Now, this is a particular time in redemptive history where
God used these men in this particular way. And it doesn’t equate to
our present day ministry. Let us give our attention now
to the reading of God’s word. This is Luke chapter nine, beginning
at verse one. Speaking of the Lord Jesus, it
says he called the 12 together and he gave them power and authority
over all demons to cure diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim
the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, take nothing
for your journey. Take no staff, take no bag, take
no bread nor money, and do not have two tunics. And whatever
house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. Wherever
they do not receive you, when you leave that town, shake the
dust from your feet as a testimony against them. And they departed,
and they went through the villages preaching the gospel and healing
everywhere. Now Herod the Tetrarch heard
about all that was happening, and he was perplexed. Because
it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead,
by others that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the
prophets of old had risen. Here it said, John, I beheaded,
but who is this about whom I hear such things? And he sought to
see him. Let us pray together. Lord, these
are words on the pages of your holy scriptures, and we want
to recognize that it is your truth for us, and your truth
for us transforms. And so we pray that we would
be willing this day to let your word do its work. Soften our
hearts, open our ears. Give us eyes that see and give
us hearts that are tender to the goodness of your ways. Help us. Help us to believe.
Help us to treasure. And most of all, help us to put
into practice what is written herein for our instruction. We
pray in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Can you imagine what it
would be like if through Burlington, Mebane, Hall River, Elon, Gibsonville
and all the surrounding communities, if a group of men came through
town, 12 of them to be exact, and they had amazing power and
authority to send Satan running. To cast demons out of people
and to heal diseases. Could you imagine what that would
be like? What the news would be like? What the buzz would
be? What the back fence talk would be through the neighborhoods?
And to boot, what if their proclamation, their message, their preaching
was spectacular proclamation of a strange kingdom that was
not from of this world? That’s exactly what was taking
place in the Galilean countryside. Jesus tells us in his word that
he has come to give good news to the poor. He has come to speak
of liberty to the captives, to give sight to the blind and to
give liberty to those who are oppressed and to proclaim the
year of the Lord’s favor and forgiveness of sins. Could you
imagine what it would be like to have such a ministry in your
midst if you were suffering from addiction? If you were enslaved
to some sort of deadly sin, if you had a cancer in your body,
a chronic illness that would not go away, if your lifestyle
was one that was destructive or futile or hopeless, these
men with authority and power to heal and to send demons running,
coming into your community and meeting your every desperate
need. Well, that’s exactly what’s going
place in Galilee. The 12 who Jesus had prayed for
in chapter six, when he went on the mountain, he prayed for
an entire night that God would give him 12 apostles. He selected
them the next morning and his ministry in Galilee began to
ramp up. But here the ministry changes. These 12 apostles, apostle
literally meaning sent ones, These 12 apostles are sent from
the master by who’s or from whom they have learned many wonderful
things about the kingdom. And they are sent by the master
through Galilee. And I want you to take note of
the key words in this passage that show us what Jesus is doing
and what they are to do. It says he called them. It says
he empowered them and he sent them. And isn’t that the way
it is in Christian ministry? God calls those who are gifted,
those who are skilled, those whom he wants to use. He calls
them and he gives them the tools and their toolkit to do the ministry
to which he sends them about to do. He calls, he empowers,
and he sends. I want us to think about this
for just a few moments. He calls 12. That’s an interesting
number, isn’t it, in the life of Israel, 12 tribes, he calls
12. He calls 12 apostles or sent
ones. He doesn’t go to the big names of Israel and say, well,
this man has a master’s from the university at Jerusalem.
This one has a Ph.D. from the University of Galilee. This man has preached to thousands.
This man has done this and that. He doesn’t go to the accolades
of the world. No, he chooses 12 Galileans,
12 fishermen, 12 ordinary men. And he calls them together. And in a sense, he’s judging
Israel. He’s saying to Israel, there’s
not one among you faithful to be my emissary. There’s not one
among you faithful to herald the good news of the kingdom,
to preach the gospel. But these men, yes, they’re sinful. Yes, they’re weak. Yes, they
are not much in the eyes of the world. But these are the ones
who I call And then he empowers them. He gives them the power
and authority over demons and diseases and to be his herald,
to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. and to give signs
and wonders of the things which God in Christ is able to do. He sends them. He sends them
out. He sends them through Galilee.
He sends them through Galilee. Soon it will be through Judea
and Jerusalem. But he sends them through and he says to them a
couple of things. Number one, don’t take much with
you. He must have been giving us a foreshadowing of the airlines
Take too much, you gotta pay for it, right? Don’t even take
a carry-on bag, he says. A little is enough. Don’t even
take two staffs. Don’t even take a second tunic.
You don’t even need a toothbrush. Those who show you hospitality
will provide. Don’t take money. Don’t take
a money bag. Take up the hospitality of the
people of Almighty God. And we get a lot of interesting
insight. At least we believe we do. We
have it in our minds that That when a person commits to Christian
ministry, it’s a vow of poverty. They shouldn’t have a staff.
They shouldn’t have a cloak. They shouldn’t have a house. They
shouldn’t have this or that or the other. Now, put that on the
extreme. We watched one of our beloved televangelist in America.
I think he purchased a thirty five million dollar Gulf Stream
and he was confronted by a news media interrogator and interviewer,
whatever you call it. and he justifies his Gulf Stream. We have that extremity, but we’ve
also put people, many Christian ministers through much poverty
unnecessarily. Jesus is saying to these guys,
this is a special ministry. This is something unique. You’re
gonna run from town to town. There’s not time to pack. There’s
not time to worry about this and that. You must go and you
must speak and you must heal and you must show people, but
also tell people the wonders of the kingdom. You take hospitality
wherever it is. A couple of years ago, I made
the invitation to a fellow preacher. to come speak at a church I was
serving. I can’t remember if it’s this or another one. Well,
my email to him got forwarded to his assistant. His assistant
sent me this long list of parameters. If Mr. So-and-so comes to your
church, he’ll make this amount of money if it’s 200 people.
He’ll make this amount of money if it’s over 200, and this amount
if it’s over 1,000. So the more that came, the more
he got to charge for preaching. thought was a little bit of a
sham. And then it was, um, you’ll, you’ll provide this, you’ll provide
that if he’s to stay overnight, this is the type of hotel he’ll
stay in. And you understand sometimes people have constraints, they
have health concerns and you know, they have some needs and
we want to look at those. But it was to me a little weird. And Jesus is saying, just go.
Just serve. My sovereign provision will be
good enough. The tunics won’t matter because
you’ll be busy doing ministry. People will give you hospitality
and don’t be picky about if the bed is a double, a single, a
twin, a king or a extra long or a lumpy or whatever. This
isn’t time for being the princess and the pea. This is time to
be God’s servants. But he does issue a caution.
You’ll go to some places and they won’t like you. You’ll go
to some places and they won’t like you because they don’t like
Jesus. And you leave that town. And
as you leave, you do what a prophet of old did ceremoniously. You
shake the dust from your feet. I have a minister friend who
I know and love. And some years ago, he left a
church and he said one thing and did a second when he left.
It was so miserable when he pastored among them, the way they treated
him, the disrespect. He told them as he left, he said, life
is too short to dance with ugly women. But what a thing to say
as a pastor to a church that has treated him so poorly. And
as he walked down the aisle on his last Sunday, he shook the
dust from his feet. And it was known to all that
they had treated him poorly. And so Jesus is saying, he’s
saying to them, he’s saying, there are people who won’t receive
you. And it’s an act of judgment when they don’t receive you because
they don’t receive me. Now, I would not recommend most
ministers to say those sorts of things to a congregation because
you got to love people and you got to give them the chance to
love Jesus. But people can be so hard on
Christian ministers. And Jesus is saying, they’re
not rejecting you. They’re rejecting me. Move on and go to those who
will hear from you. And so shake the dust from your
feet and go to the next village. Now, the two tasks, there’s two
tasks that Jesus gives his apostles here in this kingdom mission
trip. And the two tasks are simply
this, to preach and to heal. Your job is I call you and empower
you and send you is to preach and to heal. Now, this preach
word is a unique word. We may not understand this in
our English language, but the preach word in the New Testament,
and there are a couple of them, and they mean a little bit different
things. One is this word that means to be a herald, a proclaimer.
A king announcing his kingdom sends out heralds. And you know,
heralds, sometimes they wear the sandwich board. You know,
hear ye, you’ll hear ye people, and the message is on their front
and their back. This is the message of the king. Well, there’s another
word in the New Testament language. It’s the evangelism word. And
so there’s the preach herald word and there’s the evangelism
word. Tell the good news. Well, their
task is to preach. And it’s a twofold task to be
heralds of the king, preaching the good news of salvation. And
their job is to tell the gospel. Their job is to speak of the
kingdom and the king and his values. And the hope is that
souls will be saved. Their hope is that salvation
will come to the hearts of sinful people. Remember that the reason
Jesus has come is to save sinners. He’s come. to make his blessings
flow as far as the curse is found. One of the ways he’s doing that
in this particular story of Luke’s gospel is he’s sending out his
apostles to tell others that he has come to make his blessings
flow as far as the curse is found. And their hope, as they preach,
as they are heralds, as they are proclaiming the good news,
is that souls will be saved, that faith in Jesus will come
into the lives of the hearers throughout Galilee. The other
task they have is to heal. Their job is to make men and
women and boys and girls, those who are physically sick, mentally
sick, those who are demon possessed to take their broken lives and
to make them whole. Their job is to heal. Their job
is to fix what the fall of man into sin has ruined. And their
job is to give relief, to give physical aid. And their hope
is that as they perform these signs, as the Galilean countryside
not only hears the proclamation of the gospel, as the people
throughout the Galilean countryside not only hear the heralds of
the king of the kingdom, they will also see that, yes, it does
have power. Demons scatter. Satan goes running. Diseases are no match. for Christ,
the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And so their twofold
ministry to preach and to heal is to bring about faith in Jesus.
It’s to make those who are broken well. It’s to take those who
are lost and to save them. It’s to take those who are doubting
and give them hope. It’s to take those who are confused
and to give them truth. But Jesus says to them in this
little tag on of verses, oh, what is it? Verses seven, eight,
and nine about Herod. It reminds us, it reminds us
of this. Dear brothers and sisters, we
can be a faithful church. We can worship faithfully. We
can preach and teach faithfully. We can hold fast to the word
of God. We can love our confessions, our denomination. We can believe
that what we’re doing is a wonderful manifestation of the church of
God in this world but people will reject it. People will be
perplexed. People will doubt. People will
be curious and that is all. And so something we must remember
in our 21st century world of success is this. We may be faithful. We may do the work that God has
given us. We may go from village to village,
city to city. We may preach the gospel. We
may be heralds of the king of kings. And people may be confused,
they may doubt, they may reject, they may mock. They may be curious
and may come around for a little while, but we do the work faithfully
and God gives the blessings. For sure, in the minds of these
apostles and for sure, I hope, in our minds is the parable of
the soils. We’ve just heard it not too many
weeks past. We sow the seed. Some falls on
the path. Others on the rocks. Some among
the weeds. Some into good soil. Some is
snatched by Satan. Some is choked by the weeds.
Some is overcome by the cares of this world. But others, when
it falls in good soil, it is watered, it is nourished, and
it produces, and it produces some 60 hundred fold. We must remember as God’s people,
we are servants of the King. And in the midst of human history,
in the midst of redemptive history, we remember that God used Noah. And he used him in the midst
of a crooked and depraved generation. He told him to build an ark,
I’ll save you and those who have faith in me. And guess who entered
the doors? Only his family. How many rejections
did Noah endure? And there are others, the priests
of old, the prophets of old, they were mistreated. And here
comes Jesus and others still reject him and his word. And
he’s saying to the apostles, you’re going to go out there,
you’re going to do these signs, you’re going to preach this wonderful message
and people will not receive you. Move on. And so it’s an encouragement
to us as ministers and elders and deacons, as members of the
church who today are ministering for Jesus. We should not lose
heart. It has always been this way. People have desired their own
desires. They have wanted what the world offers, the cares of
this world, the deceit of Satan, and even the own desires of their
own flesh have kept them in doubt. have kept them perplexed and
have maybe at a minimum made them curious, but not faithful
followers of Jesus. But we must go ahead. We must
preach. We must teach. We must worship.
We must do what we do the way God has told us to do it, even
when the world says, no, thank you. And so we are people of
the word, people of proclamation, people of prophecy. We fight
against cursed living. Some of you are probably thinking
in your minds, why don’t we heal today? Why don’t we cast out
demons? Wouldn’t that be an effective
means of salvation? And sometimes people in the Christian
church are healed. Sometimes people in the Christian
church do experience the work of Jesus in mighty and wonderful
ways. But we’re to preach against these things. We’re to preach
against a way of living that is destructive. We’re to pray
for the sick. In fact, We don’t think about
this very often, but what does the book of James say? If anyone
is sick, let him come to the elders. and let him lay hands
on that person. And maybe in faith through their
prayers, God might perhaps heal them. We don’t even see much
of that very often today. But our ministry as a church
should be both word and deed. We should attempt to relieve
the suffering. Our brother has testified to
us today how much it has meant to him that you have looked upon
him in his sorrow and in his hardship. and even his sickness,
and it’s brought him great joy. Our ministry is one of word and
deed. And as we go about in the world
preaching the good news, we attempt to bring relief to those who
are suffering. And so dear brothers and sisters,
as we think on this passage this day, as we sow seed, as we do
good deeds in the community and want to seek to relieve others,
isn’t it a great joy When we see a wonderful response, we
see repentance, we see faith, we see a life changed and consecrated
to Jesus and his kingdom. But it’s it’s tough, too, isn’t
it? When we see doubt, when we see unbelief, when we see people
reject the Lord Jesus, when we see people move on, when we see
people reject what we treasure so much. It’s a difficult thing, but we
must press on. We must continue to sow the seed
of the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus. We must sow the seed
in Jesus name and let him bring the increase and let us not be
discouraged. Let’s pray together. Our Lord,
our God, we come before you today and we recognize that if You
had not called us. You had not empowered us, nor
had you sent us. Our work would be in vain. But
throughout the ages, you have called and empowered and you
have sent your church into the world to be a witness to the
greatness of Jesus, to the power of the gospel, to set ourselves
up as an outpost of heaven, where the realities, the eternal realities
of glory forever in your presence are made known, made manifest
on this earth. We pray, Lord, that we would
not lose heart. Though the world seems to be dark, though the
world seems to be extra busy on Sunday, not resting and not
worshiping and unconcerned with the things of the Lord, we pray
that we would continue on, that we would press on, that we would
keep the faith and that we would not be disheartened by the response
of the world, but that our faith would be strong. Our resolve
to preach and proclaim your name and your gospel would continue.
and that we would have confidence that you have begun a good work
in us and in this world, and you will be faithful to complete
it. And you will do so through your ministers, your elders,
your deacons, and your people for the glory of God until all
those men and women and boys and girls who need to come to
faith hear your gospel and are nurtured safely into heaven.
Help us, we pray in this great act of faith. We pray it in Jesus’
name, amen.