Message by Pastor John Culp : June 15, 2008
“Rocky – Part 3”
Text – Matthew 10:1-16
Pay close attention; there will be a test! It may help if you close your eyes. I have some instructions for you:
Go out the front doors of the church building; turn right on Broad Street. Go through the first traffic light and continue straight. Immediately after crossing the railroad tracks, turn left. At the first stop sign, turn left again. Go straight for several blocks – straight through the first red light. At the second red light, turn right. You’ll go quite a ways – perhaps a half a mile. At the first traffic signal you come to, turn left. There will be a business on your right – don’t turn into that. But do turn right at the first street you come to. This will take you into a parking lot.
Here’s the test: Where are you? If you say, “Grove City High School,” good for you!
Now I suspect that some people will have much more success at this little game than will others. And there could be any number of reasons for that. You may have passed with flying colors. On the other hand, if you happen to be new to town, of course it’s likely that none of this made any sense at all to you. Maybe you’re mad at somebody, or worried about something or otherwise distracted, and didn’t get the right answer for one of those reasons. If your style of learning and receiving information is far more visual than auditory, you may well have found our little exercise challenging.
The point is this: Figuratively speaking, I just sent you somewhere, on something of a mini-mission. But among the folks in our congregation today, there was no doubt a variety of levels of success in performing that task.
Today’s story from Matthew tells us of a time when Jesus sent Peter and his brother disciples on a mission of infinitely greater significance. We want to consider today the details of how He sent them, as we weigh the implications for ourselves of what He had to say as He sent them.
We do that in the context of our ongoing study of the disciple of Jesus who was clearly the first among equals. I’m speaking of Simon son of John, of course – the one to whom Jesus gave the nickname roughly equivalent to our ‘Rocky.’
If you compare the various lists of disciples of Jesus given in the New Testament, you encounter a number of variations. But there are two constants: there are always twelve. And Simon Peter always comes first. In today’s text, Matthew even says, “first, Simon (also called Peter)” (10:2 NLT).
On one hand it may seem that we don’t learn much about ‘Rocky’ from this particular text. After all, Peter never even speaks in the passage we just read. But we do find a great deal here about the work Jesus gave Peter and the others to do. You can always learn a lot about a man if you really understand his life’s work.
And there’s something even more important for us in this tenth chapter of Matthew:
from the instructions Jesus gave to Peter and the other disciples,
because just as He sent them out with kingdom work to do, He sends us!
We started out a minute ago with a little game testing how well you can follow some simple street directions. How well can we all follow – more, how faithfully will we commit ourselves to following some directions of eternal significance?
Jesus has so very much to say here to Peter and the other disciples – and by the way, if we’re Christians, that includes you and me! – that I want go briefly through our text almost verse by verse.
He starts off with instructions that may make us a bit uncomfortable: He forbids His disciples to go to the Samaritans, or for that matter to anyone but the people of Israel – “God’s lost sheep” (10:6). Now this seems so foreign to us! Doesn’t Jesus love all the little children of the world – you know, “red and yellow, black and white,” aren’t they all “precious in His sight…”? Of course He does!
But we need to bear in mind also that God’s love for people of every race and language, every tribe and nation has never negated His great covenant love for the children of Abraham! It was only natural for Jesus to send the Good News of the Kingdom first to the Jews. The time would come soon enough, after Christ’s resurrection, when He would command Peter and the rest to “Make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:19). But that breadth would come hard to the early church – including such faithful Jews as Peter (see Galatians 2:11-16).
Meanwhile, such questions call us to ask ourselves: How do I relate to people who are different from me – not only those of different race or culture or religion, but also those with opinions or attitudes different from my own? Do I see them all as ones created in the image of God? If they don’t know Christ, does my heart ache to share Him with them?
Next Jesus gives the very heart of the work Peter and the others are to do: Proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven (10:7). What a fine-sounding phrase: “The Kingdom of Heaven”! But of course Peter couldn’t – we can’t – proclaim it effectively unless he had, unless we have, some sort of grasp of what that kingdom really is. Even more, we need to recognize that our proclamation will not likely be effective unless (at least on some level) we have pledged allegiance to that kingdom!
So we need to ask ourselves regularly: Am I really living as though I long to see God’s kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven (6:10)?
One evening when he was just twelve, Robert Louis Stevenson was looking out into the dark from his upstairs window watching a man light the street lamps. Stevenson’s governess came into the room and asked what he was doing. He replied, “I am watching a man cut holes in the darkness.”
James Hewett notes what a marvelous picture that is of what our task should be as ones who share of God’s light, who proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven: people who are ever busy cutting holes in the spiritual darkness of our world.
(Illustrations Unlimited [Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988] pp. 178-179.)
How many different ways can you think of to Proclaim the Kingdom this week?
Jesus goes on to charge them with a truly staggering work. He sends Peter and his comrades out to do nothing less that “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons” (10:8)!
Matthew and the other Gospels don’t give us a lot of detail about how well the apostles did at accomplishing these miraculous works – though it’s certainly clear that they enjoyed a large measure of success (see, e.g., Luke 10:17). Especially once his will is dramatically stiffened and his arm strengthened with the very power of God through the Holy Spirit, Peter will indeed heal the sick and even raise the dead (Acts 3:1-11; 9:36-43).
In today’s Old Testament lesson, David says: “O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me. O LORD, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit” (30:2-3 NKJV).
Friend, if you are a Christian, be sure of this: Jesus sends you out into the world, as one whose soul He has brought up from the grave, to do great things in His almighty name!
Christ follows this with a guideline not only for mission, but for all of life. He bids them to “Give as freely as [they] have received” (10:8b).
We can – and we should – take this on several levels. But certainly it includes the material, the matter of money! Now that could seem to be an indictment of any (including preachers) who are paid for the proclamation of Gospel. But more about that in a moment.
In any case, Jesus’ word here is designed to cure us of any pride in sharing the Gospel. No one has yet earned his or her way into the Kingdom: we are saved by God’s grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. So shame on us if in any way we ever behave as though people owe us anything because have shared the Gospel with them.
The same holds true with regard to forgiveness. In fact, Jesus went so far as to clearly teach that failure to freely forgive others will negate our own forgiveness (Matthew 6:12-15).
Some years back, the Mercedes Benz Corporation ran a TV commercial showing one of their cars smashing head-on into a cement wall during a safety test. Someone then asks a company spokesman why they do not enforce their patent on the Mercedes Benz energy-absorbing car body, a design evidently copied by other companies because of its success. He replies mater-of-factly, “Because some things in life are too important not to share.”
That’s true of a life-saving car design. It’s doubly true of the life-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ! (Jim Beranek, Parkersburg, Iowa; in Leadership, Vol. 12, no. 3.)
Do you, do I freely share with the world that which God has so freely given to us?
Jesus next has some more surprising but very revealing instructions (10:9-10). He tells His followers not to take with them as they go out in His name the normal supplies any traveler would take on a journey – not even money (10:9-10)! They’re to expect – and to accept – hospitality from others as they do Christ’s work.
This should serve as a warning to us from two perspectives. As workers in the Kingdom, it teaches us not to trust in money – or for that matter, in anyone or anything other than our Master Jesus. But as ones who can help support others in their Kingdom work, it also warns us against neglecting that high privilege, that solemn responsibility.
As Croft Pentz notes, “You will never win the world to Christ with your spare cash.” (The Complete Book of Zingers [Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1990.])
God doesn’t send us all out personally to the mission field far from home. But He does call us all to be involved in active support of those who go.
Phil really dislikes the family cat, so he finally decides to do something about it. One day he puts the cat in the car, drives 20 blocks away from home, and leaves him. But when he pulls into the driveway back at home, there’s the cat waiting for him.
A few weeks he later decides to try again. This time he drives the cat 40 blocks from home and puts him out of the car. But again the cat beats him home.
A month goes by and the cat is still driving Phil crazy. So he puts the cat in the car once more, determined to succeed this time. He drives all around the city, turning one way or another at practically every intersection, even making U-turns – anything to throw off kitty’s sense of direction. Finally he abandons the cat in a park in an unfamiliar part of town.
A few hours later he calls his wife on his cell phone. He says, “Stacie, is the cat there?”
She says, “Yes, why?” He replies, “Put him on the phone. I’m lost and need directions home.” (“Laughter, the Best Medicine”® Reader’s Digest, February 2003, page 92.)
That’s a silly story about being lost! There is a whole world out there that’s lost without Christ. We’re no less lost when we rely on our own resources, apart from Him! But if we remember what Jesus said long ago to Peter and the others, if we trust only in what Christ has to give as we share Him with a dying world, we both win!
Jesus goes on to speak more about hospitality and blessing (10:11-13). In every town Peter and the other apostles enter, they’re to find a worthy person and stay in his home as long as they remain there. As they enter the home, they’re to pronounce a blessing on it. If the people of the home turn out in fact to be unworthy, they’re to revoke their blessing.
That command is based on the Middle Eastern idea that the spoken word has a life of its own. But it also reminds us that as Christ’s ambassadors, we offer to the world something far more than any philosophy or self-help program. We hold out to them the living truth of Christ – even Jesus Himself!
Elizabeth Dole told the story of her beloved grandmother who practiced what she preached and lived her life for others. When it became necessary for her, in her nineties, to go into a nursing home, she welcomed the opportunity. “There might be some people there who don’t know the Lord, and I can read the Bible to them,” she said. (quoted in Christian Reader, Vol. 34.)
Are we seeking each day to share the tremendous blessing God shared with us in Christ?
Jesus then speaks a sobering word about the consequences of refusing His truth. As Peter and his fellow disciples share the Good News of the Kingdom, when any town or household refuses them, they are to shake the dust of that place from their feet as they leave, as a testimony against them. Jesus solemnly warns that even the proverbially wicked Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better on Judgment Day than will such places (10:14-15).
That should surely remind us just how high the stakes are here! We live in a world where pluralism and relativism reign supreme. Everything is tolerated – everything, that is, except the radical notion that there can be such a thing as absolute truth or only one way to God. That world tells us that we have no right to speak – even to think – negatively of anyone who chooses to reject the claims of Christ.
But Jesus knows better!
What’s our attitude toward those – especially those we know and love personally – who say, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to Jesus? He teaches us here that because the consequences of that decision are so grave, we must do all we can always to bear faithful witness to them. We must never tire in lifting them before the throne of God’s grace in prayer.
Finally, Jesus closes the section with some very helpful advice on the proper basic attitude His disciples are to exhibit. He tells us, as sheep being sent out into the midst of wolves, to be as shrewd as snakes and as harmless as doves (10:16).
Those wise words issue to us a clear call to the discernment of balance. Jesus tells us to be child-like without ever becoming naďve. We’re to be aware of the ways of the world without ever becoming cynical or allowing them to corrupt us.
Needless to say, achieving that fine balance requires great wisdom. The Peter who would one day say to his Master, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,” (John 6:68 NKJV) knew where to turn for such wisdom. May we know as well!
We’ve looked today at a lot of the details surrounding exactly how we’re to go into the world in the name of Jesus. But there really is a question that comes before all that – really a much bigger question: Will we go in the first place?
A few years back a piece in Christianity Today told the story of a young Indian woman named Alila. One day she stood on the beach of the great Ganges River holding her tiny infant son close to her heart. Tears welled up in her eyes as she began slowly walking toward the river’s edge. She stepped into the water, silently making her way out until she was waist deep, the water gently lapping at the sleeping baby’s feet.
She stood there for a long time holding the child tightly as she stared out across the river. Then all of a sudden in one quick movement she threw the six-month-old baby to his watery death.
Native Indian missionary M.V. Varghese often witnesses among the crowds who gather at the Ganges. He came upon Alila that day kneeling in the sand, crying uncontrollably and beating her breast. With compassion he knelt down next to her and asked her what was wrong. Through her sobs she told him, “The problems in my home are too many and my sins are heavy on my heart, so I offered the best I have to the goddess Ganges – my first born son.”
The loving heart of that disciple of Jesus ached for the desperate woman. As she wept he gently began to tell her about the love of Jesus, and that through Him all her sins could be forgiven.
She looked at him strangely. “I have never heard that before,” she replied through her tears. “Why could you not have come thirty minutes earlier? If you did, my child would not have had to die.”
Friends, how many people are dying in the world today without Christ? How many are dying because they lack the clean water, the adequate food and medical care Jesus commands us to share? How many are dying eternally without the life-giving truth of the Gospel?
I hope we’ve already learned some, and will learn much more about Peter as we study the life of the great apostle together this summer. But nothing we can learn about him is more important than these simple truths:
Peter knew Jesus. Peter loved Jesus. Jesus sent Peter. Peter obeyed his Lord.
Will the same be true of you and me?
Let us pray. Lord Jesus, long ago You made Simon bar Jonah into a great rock of a man, one who tirelessly, fearlessly proclaimed You to a dying world. Only You know how far short of his example we often fall, dear Lord! But we rely on both Your great mercy and the invincible power You offer us through the Holy Spirit. In Him please continue the life-transforming work You’ve begun in all who trust in You. Through the Spirit’s power, Lord, please continue to send us out into the world. Make us into rock-like disciples, ones who will bring glory to You as we joyfully proclaim You day after day, until all shall know. We pray in Your conquering name. Amen.