Father in heaven, we do thank you now that we have your word and its power and how it sings to us, the glory of Jesus and the gospel. Father, we pray that you would bless our time now, that you would use this time that we spend looking into your word to exalt the name of the Lord Jesus in each of our hearts. To give us the gift of faith, if we have not received it yet, to strengthen our faith, if we have received it. Father, we pray that you would equip us, empower us for the mission that Jesus has called us to. And we pray that as a result of what we do in here even this morning, that the gospel would advance to our neighbors and to the nations, for it is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. This is a very important passage when it comes to the understanding of the vision that we have for our church here, the vision that we are working toward over the next several years. And all of the passages of the Bible are important obviously, but this one gives us some specific insight into a couple of the things that are specific to the vision, which we'll talk about here this morning. But the main thing I want to see this morning is that Jesus calls and equips us to live what we call here the cross-shaped life. That is a life that is shaped by the cross of Christ, what he has done in his life, in his death, on the cross, in his burial, in his triumphant resurrection, his ascension, his sending of the disciples. All of these things are wrapped up in our understanding of what it means to live a life shaped by the cross of Christ. So we're going to talk about the cross-shaped life this morning. And if you're new with us, this will be an invitation for you to be living this life with us. If you've been with us for some time, then it's a good refresher for all of us. We talked about this in September, we hit it again in January, here we are in March, then it is in the text, and so we get to celebrate it and look at it this morning. We're going to look at three things if you're making an outline. We're going to talk about what it is, what is the cross-shaped life, and then we will talk about how we live it, and finally why do we live the cross-shaped life. So what it is, how we live it, and why we would want to live it. So let's start out by talking about what the cross-shaped life is. We're going to look at verse 7 and then verse 12 and 13, and I want to encourage you to keep your bibles open. If you closed it, open it back up, nobody's looking. We would love for you to be looking at the word as we talk about it. So I'm going to talk about kind of big picture here from verse 7, 12, and 13. Let's read 7, talking about what the cross-shaped life is. It says, and he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two, gave them authority over unclean spirits, and then verse 12. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent, and they cast out many demons, and they anointed with oil, many who were sick, and healed them. So here's the big picture. This is what we talk about when we're using a language of the cross-shaped life. It's four main things. We're going to talk about these things first, and then we're going to dig through this passage to see even more good things from here. So here is the cross-shaped life. The cross-shaped life is a life of what we call gospel transformation, gospel proclamation, gospel demonstration, and gospel multiplication. Transformation meaning that it is a life where we are being made new by Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a life of proclamation meaning we are telling people using our words to tell people this incredible news that there is salvation through faith in Christ. It's a life of gospel demonstration that's demonstrating to the world through the things that we do, our deeds that Christ is glorious and that he is the Savior, and then multiplication is what we pray for. It's what we hope for. We want God to use our efforts to bring this amazing news and word indeed to more and more people that they might receive salvation in Christ and join us in the cross-shaped life. How do we get there? That's the question. Now, you can go on this little journey with me, or you can just listen, but if you've never seen this in the text, I want to invite you to just flip back a couple of pages to chapter 1 and 2, because we're going to see how we arrived at this vision here and how Jesus now arrives at this moment ready to send out the apostles on their first missions trip here. In chapters 1 and 2, little walk down memory lane, we've been in this study for many months now. In chapters 1 and 2, we see Jesus, and his ministry is beginning, he's baptized by John after he's been announced by John, and then he begins his ministry. And what's amazing is we see in chapter 1, 14 and 15, as it says that Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of God and calling people to repent and believe in the gospel. And so we see him proclaiming, he's telling people the gospel, the gospel has bad news that you and I are sinners, we've broken God's law, we confess that to him this morning, we cannot save ourselves no matter what we try to do. And the gospel is the good news that God sent his one and only son to live the life that you and I should have lived and then die the death that we deserve to die, and if we believe in him, we receive eternal life. And so he was proclaiming these things, he came proclaiming the gospel of God. And then if you're in chapter 1, look at verse 25, we see him casting out a demon, and then you skip down to verse 31, and he heals. He's a person, and so Jesus came proclaiming the gospel, casting out demons, and healing. He also we see in chapter 1, 16, and 17, and then also in chapter 2, 14, he was calling people to follow him, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. The foundation, Mark has laid that foundation in 1 and 2, and then in chapter 3, if you remember, we saw that Jesus set apart the apostles and said that he wanted them to be with him, this is 3, 13, through 15, he wanted them to be with him and then be sent out by him. So to be with him, so that he can transform them, make them into things that they were not, and then send them out. And then we get to chapter 4, and 5, we see them being with him. They are following him, they are watching him, they are learning from him. If you remember in chapter 4, we looked at Jesus giving the apostles private instruction regarding the parables, and then at the end of 4 and through chapter 5, as they are with him, they see this incredible display of his power over nature, over evil, over illness, over death, they are with him. And then we saw last week in the beginning of chapter 6, that they were also with him when he experienced rejection in his hometown of Nazareth. So now this Jesus who has called them to be with him, and then also that he might send them out, they have been with him, and here they go, now he is going to send them out. And looking again at verse 7, it says he sent them out, at verse 12, they went out, and they proclaimed that people should repent, obviously they were proclaiming the gospel, and that people should repent and believe, and they cast out demons verse 13 and healed. Who does that sound like? It sounds like Jesus. They are now sent out to do the very things that Jesus came to do. To proclaim the gospel, to cast out demons, and to heal. And so we call these things proclamation, gospel proclamation, proclaiming with words that Jesus is the Lord, and the Savior, and that repentance and faith are necessary, and then also demonstrating, when they were casting out demons, when they were healing people, they were demonstrating the gospel. It was a physical, a visual picture of this great news. It was demonstrating that Jesus is the king of the kingdom, and that this kingdom of God, where God's will is done, is breaking into this lost and dark world, where so many tragic things happen every single day. They are proclaiming with their words that Jesus is Lord, he's the king, and they're demonstrating the in-breaking of this kingdom by doing these extraordinary things. They had spent time with them, and now they're sent out by him, and this is the same call upon our lives, that we too would spend time with them being transformed through the worship service, through our life groups, through our personal and family devotions, that we would be transformed by being with him, and that we would also be sent out by him. By him to proclaim with our words and demonstrate with our deeds that Jesus is Lord, praying for multiplication to take place. Now, of course, we don't have the ability to do the extraordinary demonstrations of the in-breaking of the kingdom like they did, but in principle, it's the same thing, that as we proclaim with our words, and then with deeds, serve people in need, help people to the extent that we can, they both hear that God is gracious to sinners who repent, and they also experience that in-breaking of the kingdom. Here's the picture that hopefully we can all remember, and it's why we call it the cross-shape life, because it looks like this, and it's this amazing reality of Christ transforming us, that we are being made new over and over again, as we continue to believe in him. He keeps making us new, sanctifying us, so we experience gospel transformation, and then he's also equipping us through that to be sent out, to proclaim with our words and demonstrate with our deeds, and the result that we pray for and hope for, is multiplication, that God would work in us, and through us, that people would hear. People in Orlando, people around the state of Florida, people in our country, people among the nations, it's an amazing, amazing call that he places on our lives. He calls us, and he equips us for this cross-shape life, and so the vision that we are moving forward with is the 2020 vision that by the year 2020, the majority of us are living regular rhythms of transformation, of proclamation, demonstration, and seeing multiplication take place. And what's so amazing about that is the results of focusing on gospel transformation, submitting to him, repenting, believing, obeying God's will, we see lives changed. And so we want to see more and more changed lives here, through focusing on gospel transformation. As we are more and more equipped and bold to proclaim the gospel, we will see more and more new believers, we want people to repent and believe. And so we are excited to continue that effort. And as we focus on demonstrating the in-breaking of the kingdom, we will see needs being met, our needs, the needs of the community, pictures of God's will being done. And then as we pray for multiplication, we will see more people, not only believe but choose a life shaped by the cross of Christ, more disciples, birthing new life groups, planting more churches, sending more missionaries to the nations. It is something so much bigger and greater than we could ever come up with on our own, because it is God's call to us. And so that's the vision. That's the big picture. These are the things that we want to be focused on as a church. Let's be transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. Let's proclaim the gospel with our words. Let's demonstrate with our deeds and let's pray for and celebrate multiplication. That's the cross shaped life. Now, how do we do it? How do we do it? Let's talk about how do we live the cross shaped life looking back? We are going to go through all the verses now starting in verse 7. What we want to see here is three things. We live the cross shaped life together, depending on God with clarity about what's at stake. That's what we want to see here as we look at these verses. We live the cross shaped life together, depending on God with clarity about what's at stake. Look at verse 7. He called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits, two by two. What that means is they were not by themselves. We live this cross shaped life together in partnership with other people. We do ministry. We do church together. This is an amazing thing. It's not unique to this passage. We see this in Luke. We see this in Matthew. In fact, scholars believe that Jesus always sent them out in twos and when you look at the book of Acts, guess what you see? You see people going out in twos. You see Peter and John. You see Paul and Barnabas and then Paul and Silas and Barnabas and Mark. Mark, the guy who wrote the book. He knows that you do ministry. You do the cross shaped life together. This is amazing especially for someone like me because I get scared. I don't like doing things alone. To see that Jesus wants us to do this thing together is very exciting to me. We do not have to do these things alone. Now I got to say this. In the eighth chapter of the book of Acts, a man named Philip is suddenly sort of teleported to another place and he sees an Ethiopian unit reading the scroll of Isaiah and he tells him that it's about Jesus and the unit becomes a Christian. So if you are suddenly teleported somewhere and someone's reading the Bible, you tell them about Jesus by yourself. Agreed? Like that's the rule. But other than that, other than that, we do this together. We do this together. You partner up with people that you like or even if you don't like, it's more important than whether you like the person. We do this together. We do this in life groups. You do this as families. Jesus wants us to do these things together. Now here's another thing too. It's strength and numbers. I think when you're not alone and you have a partner in something, it helps you with fears. Think about the balancing of gifts. I'm a limited person. We're all limited people. But you put two of us together and our powers combined. Like that type of mentality. Like we get to play off each other's gaps and fill in for each other together. We have much more gifts, much more abilities. It's amazing. Here's another reason too why he sends us together, especially by twos in this case. In Deuteronomy 17 and 19, it was very clear that no one was supposed to believe a charge of guilt except on the testimony of two witnesses. And so here the disciples, the apostles are going out to basically tell everyone that they are guilty, that they have not obeyed God's law and therefore that they deserve a death sentence. And so having two of them fulfills the law increases the credibility and the believability. So look at that. Even as we partner together, God uses our partnerships to increase the believability of the message. So we do it together. Let's keep going. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff. No bag, no bread, no money in their belts. But to where sandals are not put on two tunics. Next thing we see here, not only do we live the cross shaped life together, but we live it depending on God, depending on God. Look at this. He sends them out with no food. They don't have any extra clothes. They don't need money and they're only wearing one tunic, which is like a coat. So if it got cold and God provided nothing based on them leaving with without these things, they're set up to be hungry naked, broken cold. I mean, that is their lot, unless God provides. And you want to know something that is amazing. Pastor Michael Hart was pointing this out to me this week. It's amazing. If you turn to Luke 22, which you can, if you want, but in Luke 22, Jesus is referring back to one of the times that he sent them out. He sent them out like this many, many times. So I don't know if it was this exact one he's sending. He's talking about. But he's Luke 22, 35 and 36. He's referring to one of the times he sent them out without provisions. And here's what it says. And he said to them, when I sent you out with no money or knapsack or sandals, did you lack anything? And they said nothing. And he said to them, but now let the one who has a money bag take it and likewise a knapsack and let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. And so one of the things that we see there is the reason we don't go out without provisions. Now as Jesus said, now you don't do that. Now you can go with provisions. If, especially if you realize that you don't need them. Because we can fully depend on God. That is the lesson that Jesus was teaching them. He wanted them to know. And therefore you and me to know that he will be there. He will provide for us. All we need is our faith. You don't even need the point where you feel like you're ready. You're never going to feel ready. We never feel ready. We have to go on faith as we seek to proclaim the gospel as we seek to demonstrate the gospel. And Jesus is saying to us through this, you can trust me. You could trust the work of the Holy Spirit to give you words to say, to give you compassion to deal out. It's amazing. The family are going to go to sunny Minnesota for vacation. And so you can pray for our family. Seriously, I covet your prayers. And the only thing that's kind of sad is in March. The ice begins to be just thin enough that it gets to be sort of a dangerous practice of going out and walking on the ice so they say that you shouldn't do it. So that's a bummer because we like to do that. But in the dead of winter, it's so much fun to go out and just walk on the ice because eventually you realize you're standing in the middle of a lake. And it's just amazing. It's just on the ice now. But what's better is the best thing is when you are accompanying somebody who's never done that. And it's this pretty interesting experience for them. So what happens is they start walking out onto the frozen lake. And they get, you know, a ways out and they realize based on how far the shore is behind them that if this ice breaks, you know, they're going to be up to their neck, maybe even over their head and the panic sets in and the stance begins to widen. And they kind of keep going, but they, you know, they're, you know, like Bambi when he's first walking. And they spread out farther and farther until sometimes they're so scared. They just wind out completely spread eagle flat on the ice. Can't move totally trembling not because it's cold. They're bundled up. It's because they're totally scared. They are so afraid that the ice is going to break underneath them and they will plunge to their watery death. And then they hear this noise, this low rumble. And it gets louder and they look and it's a huge four-wheel drive pickup truck pulling an ice shack filled with dudes in the back going, hey, we're going fishing. And they suddenly and more on the truck rolls by and then you know what happens, they get up. They get up and now they're Brian Boytono dancing on the ice. It's unbelievable. But here's the thing. The entire time that ice could hold. It wasn't a matter of whether or not that ice would be for them what they needed to be for them. There's a matter of believing that it was true. And this passage is proof to us that God will be for us what we need him to be for us that he will support us protect us provide for us we can trust him. So when we want to depend on him we see he will be there. He will provide. What did you lack? They said he said to them. What did you lack? They said nothing. So we do this not only together but we do this depending on God. We do this by faith in a God that provides next. 10 and 11. And he said to them whenever you enter a house stay there until you depart from there there being the area that they were in. 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. We live the cross shaped life together depending on God and third with clarity about what's at stake. What is at stake? What's at stake is being rejected by God and spending eternity in hell because someone has trusted in themselves and not in Christ. That's what's at stake. Shaking off the dust. What did this mean? It was a symbol. It's not necessarily an insult. A lot of times people say, oh Jesus told them to insult people. No, that's not necessarily the case. Could this be taken as an insult? Sure, but it's a testimony against the Jews in a context in a way that they would understand. You see Jews at this time when they would go somewhere when they would travel and then return to the Holy Land, they would shake off the dust off their feet or out of their garments before they went back into the Holy Land as a way of saying, we will not bring the pollution of the world into the Holy Land. It's a way of marking out a clear distinction between God's people and not God's people. And so what this is, it's a demonstration. It's a visual. As they proclaimed to the people, you must repent of your sin and believe the gospel. When they were rejected, then they would not only have said these words, but then they would do this visible demonstration. Maybe they were hoping that it would stick in their minds and lead them to repentance. But it was a picture of the fact that if the people rejected the apostles or the disciples, they were rejecting Jesus and if they were rejecting Jesus, they were rejecting the grace of God and accepting God's wrath, accepting the punishment of eternal hell. And I got to think that whenever they did this, they wept. Paul did this, Paul shakes the dust out of his garments in Acts 13 and in Acts 18 and in Romans 9 he gives us a window into how he feels, how he felt he says in 1 and 2 of Romans 9. I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscious bears me witness in the Holy Spirit that I have great soul and unceasing anguish in my heart. Because when people reject the gospel, they are rejecting the grace of God and they will stand on their own merits on the day of judgment and they will not be able to stand. So I feel in my heart when they did this, they wept. Eternal condemnation is at stake. And I know we don't like to talk about hell. It's not a popular subject, but it's true. JC Ryle says that if I never spoke of hell, I should think of myself as an accomplice of the devil. Jonathan Edwards said some talk of hell as an unreasonable thing to frighten persons to heaven, but I think it is a reasonable thing to endeavor to frighten persons away from hell. They stand upon its brink and are just ready to fall into it and are senseless of their danger. Is it not a reasonable thing to frighten a person out of a house that's on fire, or is it not the duty of a parent to warn their child running toward the edge of a cliff? He asks, Spurgeon Charles Spurgeon said, if sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies and if they will perish, let them perish with our arms around their knees imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let no one go their unwarranted or unprayed for. We have to be clear about what's at stake. There's so many reasons that we love to talk about Jesus about how we have peace from Him, we have comfort in Him, we have wisdom from Him, we have guidance from Him, all these wonderful things, but we cannot leave out. We have to be a church that will boldly stand on the truth of the Scripture and say that hell is real and that people are headed there without faith in Christ and this is what makes our division, what makes Christ is what He's calling us to so important because of what's at stake. People's eternity. Without faith, people will spend eternity where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth as Jesus says. People need to hear through our proclamation and they need to see the in-breaking of the kingdom through our demonstration. So together, depending on God with clarity about what's at stake, why? I think it's obvious, let's look at why I want to talk about 12 and 13 and I want to show us another thing here. It's not only that we want people to escape hell, but also we want them to enter the kingdom of God. We want them to inherit the kingdom of God. Look at verse 12 and 13, so they went out and proclaimed that people should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed many with oil who were sick and healed them. You see, the reality is when Jesus returns, He's going to establish His kingdom in full on earth and God's will which is done in heaven will be done on earth and only those who believed will be able to stay able to remain in this incredible phenomenal kingdom. And the kingdom is going to be more amazing than we could ever possibly imagine. No eye has seen, no ear has heard. It's going to be beyond our wildest dreams amazing when the kingdom comes in full. Now notice, I want you to see this, the apostles cast out some demons and they healed some people and if you remember, if we apply what we learned last week, what we know if they were casting out demons and if they were healing people then what? Some people believe we know that because last week we saw Jesus in Nazareth, he was rejected and it says because of their unbelief, he was unable to do a mighty work there and it wasn't that he was physically unable. It was that he was morally unable because it was would have been wrong for him to give these extraordinary pictures of the kingdom that's coming to people who would not enter it. Those extraordinary demonstrations of the coming kingdom were reserved for those who were believers. And so these extraordinary acts, these miracles of then and our good deeds are acts of mercy and justice, our demonstration or gospel demonstration. And so these things give a foretaste of the kingdom that is coming for those who repent, it's giving a picture of how everything is going to be made right. Think about this, they're casting out demons. Well when Jesus brings the kingdom, he's going to cast out evil and they were healing people and when Jesus brings the kingdom when he returns, he's going to eradicate all illness. The kingdom returns just like Jesus' resurrection. He was new, the world will be new, the world will be made new when the kingdom comes at Christ returns as CS Lewis says all things that were sad will come untrue and all these things that make the world a dark place are going away forever, forever. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, there will be no more drug addictions or divorce or racism or poverty or child abuse or war or homelessness or AIDS or genocide or adultery or hatred, you name it, all of the things that make this world dark and evil are gone when he returns and we want people not only to not go to hell but we want them to go to this kingdom that we are going to. We want that for them, we don't want people to miss, we don't want people to not know all that they receive through faith in Christ if they will repent of their sins, these things that we hang on to, let them go if they will choose to die to themselves, pick up their cross and follow Christ what they receive from God's grace is far more than we could ever ask for or imagine. Right now when we choose to follow Christ and receive this free gift, we receive freedom from the penalty of sin, we know we are not condemned, we have this guilt gone, we receive freedom from the power of sin, the Holy Spirit works inside of us to change us and make us new and we live knowing that one day the king will return and establish this incredible kingdom forever. And one thing we just need to be willing to say this, people want to, they don't want to put their faith in Christ because they want to hang on to these things and I'm telling you Jesus has so much more for you than you could ever give up for him. That is what people need to hear that Jesus has so much more in store for us than we would ever be able to give up for him and for the sake of the kingdom.
And that good news of that kingdom that's coming, it's amazing, think about that. All of us made new, get along perfectly and amazingly with our perfect king forever. So we have our vision and that is us trusting Christ becoming mobilized to be the messengers that we're called to be. We're going to do this together, we do this depending on God and we do this with clarity about what's at stake and God gets all the glory. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we just praise your name that you would send your son to die in our place that you would give us this gift of faith and that you would empower us by the power of the Holy Spirit to respond with faith. To live by faith and Father, I know my own heart and I know the hearts of so many are that we really do want to live this way. Jesus has called us to live and it's scary and it's hard. So would you just be merciful to us by making us more and more bold every day, every week. Would you help us, Lord, to be transformed? Help us to learn to proclaim more and more, to learn to demonstrate more and more. And would you bring a great harvest? We pray these things in the matchless name of our risen Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.