In the flesh, in Christ Jesus, your Son, our Lord, you were a man of sorrows. Lord Jesus, you are acquainted with grief and acquainted with hatred and persecution. And sometimes we can't understand that. And sometimes we identify with it and we don't quite know what to do with ourselves. We don't quite know what to do with the difficulties, the opposition, the struggles that we have. I pray, Lord, that as we look at your life, we would first of all come again to know you and your life and your ministry and the contours of that blessed life 2,000 years ago that continues this day. I pray that we know that better, that we would know you better through our time. And, Lord, I pray that as always, when we look upon you, that we would know not only who you are but also who we are and what it means to walk after you. We pray in Christ's name, amen. Well, today we are indeed looking at conflict in the life of Christ and we are looking at the mission of Christ and how that mission caused some of the conflict that we'll be talking about. Let me just take a moment first, though, and talk about where we stand in the drama of the book of Matthew, the drama of the life of Christ. Last time we're together, we saw that there is a cohesion or a unity that stretches all the way from Matthew 4.23 through Matthew 9.35. That unity is one that shows that Jesus' ministry united word and work. His ministry was one in which he preached in synagogues, taught in synagogues, preached the kingdom and performed wonderful deeds, healed the people. And those went together, as we saw. Now, toward the end of that time, we begin to get some early hints of Jewish opposition. For example, when the paralytic was lowered through the roof, some of the people who were there thought that Jesus blasphemed. That's a hint that things may go wrong. And at the end of the section, in chapter 934, Jesus casts out a demon. I guess I won't turn to it. And they think that maybe he is doing this by the power of Satan, and there are a couple of hints that they are even considering taking his life. There is then, around this time, a turning point in the life of Christ. Not much opposition yet. There's going to be another turning point later when the opposition gets much stiffer. But a slight shift, as Jesus turns from simply the great throngs in their undifferentiated status, and begins to train a few disciples who will carry on his work. Take a look with me at Matthew chapter 9 and verse 35. Matthew 9, verse 35. And maybe I'll get another translation out for this. Matthew 9, 35. After Jesus has performed a number of miracles, we read, one more time, 35, that he was going through the towns and villages teaching, preaching and healing. And then, 36, on this tour of Galilee, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. So although he's been ministering, they're wandering, they're drifting. They don't know where to go, and they're oppressed. And then this, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field. He sees that there are a great number of people. He sees them as not simply the unwashed, the masses, the ignorances of the world, but he has compassion on them, and knows that the only way that they can be reached is by having more workers go. Those workers are not going to be described in the Pharisees by and large because they despise the masses. What he has in mind, when he says this, is that he needs to send out his own disciples to take care of them. But, if you know the gospel of Matthew well, we don't really have a clear cut list of the disciples. In fact, the list of the disciples comes in the very next passage, 10-1, which is still very closely related to this initial mission of Jesus. 10-1 reads, he called his 12 disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits to heal every disease and sickness. These are the names of the Twelve Apostles. This is the first time we get a name of the Twelve. It's the first time we know the Twelve as the chosen ones. But, what he needs to do is motivate them to go out into the crowds, motivate them for ministry, and that's not always the easiest thing to do. These Twelve are not necessarily highly mature Christians, and so the question would come, what do you do? How do you motivate people to go out? I was once in a Sunday school class, and I was talking about Christian ministry, and I said to them, you know, the one thing you don't want to do in Christian ministry is try to motivate people through fear. And I was saying, you know, if you motivate people through fear like, you know, if you don't do the job, the church will fall apart or people will go to hell and so forth. If you motivate people through fear, then, of course, they're not really enthusiastic about the job, and when things get tough or, you know, they meet some obstacles, they'll fall away because you manipulated them into it. They're not really dedicated to it. And then, of course, the question came from the front people are looking at me, and finally somebody says, but you say, don't motivate by fear, but what else is there? And the answer came from the back row, guilt. That actually happened to me. Well, Jesus didn't motivate through fear or through guilt. Jesus motivated by letting people see the need, and then saying, you pray about it, you see these needy people. Would you join me in praying about their needs? That's how he motivated. Then he called the Cyples, and after he called them, he sent them out. Those who are motivated went. There is something very practical in what Jesus does here, and very practical for Christian living and church living. And that is sort of a continuing, might say, between different conceptions of the way in which people get ready for Christian ministry. There are some people who say, when we go to Christian ministry, that we need to be, or when they think about the church and its task, they want to be what I'll call well-fed. And there are others that are soon trained, and this is a continuum, and I've actually encountered both of this kind of person, too. The person who soon trained says, the world is dying, the world is going to hell, the needs are innumerable. Just let's get out there and do ministry. This might be somebody, maybe even some people, at a seminary, or at a Christian college, or something, and they chafe under being there. Because they think, I have enough knowledge, I can, there's so much to be done, let's just get out there and do it. If we know Christ, and we've read the Bible a couple of times, we have enough, let's just go. And there are other people that I view as just about the opposite, I call them well-fed. These are Christians who love a good meal, and I'm not talking about church dinners either. They're people who view church attendance as an act of worship, and service to God, eat not just morning worship, mind you, but almost any attendance at any church function is a proof that they're loyal, and that they love God and that they're dedicated to his ministry. They say, I want to go to a church where I'll be fed. I like a pastor who gives real spiritual meat, and they use these feeding metaphors a lot, and sometimes they want to be spoon fed, and sometimes they're so well fed that they get spiritually overweight, and they can barely waddle out of the church and get into the world. In my experience as a pastor, when I was a pastor, there was the location of my church was in kind of a medium neighborhood, not a, I'll say, medium low neighborhood, and not desperate, but not great either. There were a lot of people that probably didn't go to church, I mean probably a low church attendance ratio and some needy people. I suggested that we cancel our, it was a small church, that we cancel our evening services just for the months of July and August, and maybe visit people in the neighborhood a little bit, or if you don't want to do that, visit people in your own neighborhood. But just, you know, the people who come to evening church, in my church, in July and August, were people who knew plenty, you know, and they were already coming to Bible study in Sunday school and morning worship. Let's get out there and do something. It was the one time that I proposed something, and I really wanted to do that, I was completely shot down. We cannot stop having evening service. That's our service to God, so they said. Well, I think maybe a little more service could have been rendered by, you know, doing something with our neighbors. And they were, the people who led the charge on this, there weren't many, but they were vocal, were of the well fed variety. You know, we just need to be trained and trained and trained and trained, and maybe some day we'll get around to service. Well, Jesus takes it in between. Jesus has worked with these people for a while, He's taught them about the discipleship, about His ministry, but then probably before they're really comfortable, He sends them out. They know a fair amount, He's not a soon trained type, they've been with them for a while, but now it is time to get out there and go. Matthew chapter 10 describes the instructions for someone who's sent out. Before we actually look at the instructions, we just tell you two things. One, Matthew 10 probably is a summary of a variety of things Jesus said about Christian ministry. It's not necessarily the case that he said all these things at this particular time, or it may also be that he just talked a lot longer than we have. And the reason why I said that is because early in Matthew chapter 10, he says, don't go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans go rather to the law sheep of the house of Israel. Then later on, for example, already in chapter 10 verse 18, on account, on my account, you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. So already in verse 18, he's saying, well, don't go to the Gentiles, but I do want to tell you a few things. You are going to go to the Gentiles eventually. And I want to tell you a few things about that and about your testimony to the Gentiles. So it could be that this is a much longer discussion that we have here. Maybe things Jesus told about ministry brought together in one place, things he said on several occasions. The other thing you need to know is that this passage is one of the clear cut instances of a time where you need to recognize the value of background studies for Bible interpretation. There are loads of things in this passage that you can't just read and understand. In this passage, we meet Samaritans and demons and worthy persons and peace going forth and peace resting and shaking dust off people's feet. And things will be, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah and a lot of things in that passage, we may not know. It's a little reminder that in that world, things are very different from the R and R world and we need to get in there sometimes and do some background studies if you really want to understand a passage such as Matthew 10. Okay. Matthew 10, the mission of the disciples, it starts with a statement about the sheep. Chapter 9, 35 to 38 already read it. Jesus looks at the crowds and they're in difficult straits, they're harassed and helpless, they're like sheep without a shepherd. And he says, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Now, before I go any farther, here already is a Bible verse is one of those background things. Here's a Bible verse that we tend to think we know exactly what it means. We tend to think this means we coat it this way. The fields are white for harvest, we're running that together with another Bible verse. And so just get out there and reap that harvest. The truth is that if you read Matthew 10 carefully, there's more reference to persecution and being oppressed and being resisted than there is to happy results. And the truth is if you look up the word harvest in the Bible, you will find that more times than not, the harvest is not the end gathering of the lost, but more often the harvest is a way of alluding to God's eschatological harvest for judgment. The harvest is the last day when God gets his sickle out and reaps the world. And if you are familiar with that imagery of harvesting with the side or with the sickle, you know that means cutting down the wicked. And you can find that in places like Isaiah 27, 12 and 13, Jeremiah 12, verse 3, Jeremiah 50, verse 16, Joel 3, 1 to 13, Revelation 14, verse 15, the harvest is for judgment. Now I'm not saying it's always for judgment, I'm saying that this is a little bit ambiguous, not quite sure what Jesus is saying. Is he saying, just bring him on in, it'll be so easy, just get out there as he's saying, your ministry in some ways is a declaration of judgment on the wicked, a preparation for the final harvest. Well, we have to see what happens. Chapter 10, verses 1 to 4, Jesus calls his workers. He says to them simply pray and we presume that they prayed and then he calls them. If you'll let this list, you can study them in detail. We're not going to do that. I'll just say one thing, I think. And that is about the only thing they haven't common as Jesus and a response to his call. Can't really tell anything else. They're loyal to Jesus, due to, of course, have to put in brackets. Then he gives his charge as to where there to go. And that is found in 10, 5 through 15. And it starts right away with a riddle. And that is what does Jesus mean when he says, don't go among the Gentiles or any town of the Samaritans? And what's the problem with Jesus' initial remark? Why do we stumble right away? Too easy of a question. You would think that he would be sending the whole world. That's one problem. Is he prejudice or something? See, narrow-minded? There's another problem. Okay, that's a good point. A lot of Gentiles, as we saw in our first night together, a lot of Gentiles in some of these towns, were they supposed to somehow size people up by their diction and their clothing and so forth to make sure they avoid any little enclaves of Gentiles? There's another problem. Well, it's a good question. I don't think the issue is social conflict. What do you know from the rest of the Bible? Don't go to the Gentiles. Other places, he says, go to the Gentiles. In fact, the great commission, the final words of Matthew, say, go to all the nations. And of course, the nations is just another word here for everybody in the world. And that's primarily Gentiles. So what is Jesus doing? And this gives us a little chance to check ourselves for the way we look at the Bible. One thing that people do when they get a verse like this is to say, well, look at that verse. Don't go to the Gentiles. That obviously no longer applies today. So let's move on to the next verse. Have you ever done that? And that no longer applies. And as if now you've exeged it, you said it's irrelevant. And then you press on. What we have to do when we see something like this is check ourselves by asking a few questions. First of all, have you understood what it meant? Does Jesus really mean don't go to the Gentiles? Have you understood the wording? Maybe get out of the translation. Get out of Bible dictionary. Well, if you check it out, actually, there's no hidden secrets. It means it seems to mean don't go to the Gentiles and it does. The next thing you do is you ask, well, is there anything going on at that time in history? Is there anything going on in, I'm going to use the phrase, the redemptive historical situation? By that, I mean, not only the situation in history of the year or the culture and so on, but by redemptive historical, I mean the place in God's plan, the place in God's administration of His justice and love and His covenants that's different then. So that situation was somehow different from what it is now. And of course, that may be the crucial thing for this passage. And the next thing of course you need to do is once you've located what might explain it, you find the principle that's involved, so that whatever they were doing back then, things may have changed, but there was some divine principle, some godly wisdom in that, but to find that principle and apply it today. So here it is. The situation was different back then. How much that the disciples know at that time about the mission of Christ, the mission of the kingdom and God's plan of salvation? How much did they know? Very limited. Who did they think God was going to redeem? The Jews. What was their conception of how the Gentiles might be saved? They had to become Jewish. Listen, they said, if you want to become Jewish, come on over. If you want to come to the temple and follow our rules and our rituals and our customs and inter our covenant our way, you're welcome. In other words, become a Jew and then you can become redeemed. And they were genuinely open to that. And they looked forward to that. They weren't ready for the idea that the church doesn't just let people come or the kingdom, the work of God doesn't say you can come if you want, but rather the work of God is to go. That was a new concept for them. They weren't familiar with that yet. And so, they're going to start off by going to whom? Well, to the people that are most logical. The people that are ready, another way to put it is this. They're going out in their first mission. At least Jesus is saying, I'm going to give you a break and let you go to the people you thought you might go to anyway. I'm going to let you go to the people whom you know and whom you care about. How, the gent that the average Jew, include the 12 disciples, they're not all that trained yet. How did they regard a Gentile? What kind of language would they use? What was their image of a Gentile or a Samaritan? Dogs, Gentile dogs. And maybe later on in the course we'll talk about how they thought about Samaritans, certainly below the status of a dog, because they should know better. And really they had a very low concept. In fact, I'll tell you one thing that they said just to give you a taste of it. They actually debated whether you should help a dying Gentile or Samaritan, somebody who was beaten up or they actually had actually one little debate, should you help rescue a drowning Gentile? And you know what the answer was? Answer was you don't need to, even if you're a good swimmer. You know why? Because they're unbelievers. And if you rescue them, you may simply give them more years in which to do evil, so you are under no obligation. Now if you want to do it, you can. It's not immoral to help a dying Gentile, but it's not recommended either. That's just an image, it's just a picture, it's an actual debate that the rabbis had. And so it's not surprising that Jesus would say, don't go to the Gentiles, that is to say, you go to the people whom you know first. And that gives us, of course, a nice principle, doesn't it? If you're going to start off in some ministry, you probably want to start off, now hear me carefully, I'm not saying end up, I'm saying start off. You probably want to start your ministry with people whom you know, whom you love, whom you expect to minister to. The first time you're going to set out on a mission, you probably don't want to go to Ukraine or to India or to France or someplace. You probably want to go in your own neighborhood. Get good at that for a while, learn a few skills, then you can try something across borders. Well, what's the charge in the next place? The charge to the disciples versus following. The message in some is that they should follow the pattern of Christ. Seven or eight, as you go preach this message, the kingdom of heaven is near, who preached that message before? John the Baptist and Jesus. Further, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy. Okay, who healed the sick? Who cleansed those who had leprosy? Okay, so what they're doing is following in the footsteps of Jesus and not only in general, but even that pattern of word and work. Preach the kingdom and then give signs. What he's saying is, what you saw me do, now you imitate. And then we get this bit of advice about how they should proceed. Don't take any gold or silver or copper in your belts or bag for your journey or an extra tunic or sandals or a staff. Take nothing with you. All right, how are we going to eat? The answer is, whatever town, verse 11, or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. Give it your greeting. And if the house is deserving, let your peace rest on it. If not, your peace will return to you. And if no one welcomes you, shake the dust off your feet before you leave that home or town. And it'll be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town if there's not one person who welcomes you. Now, you have to understand what shaking the dust off means. When a Jew was traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem, Judea, I didn't bring my overhead today. You've got the picture in your mind. Samaria is between Galilee where there are lots of Jews and Judea where there are lots of Jews and aren't many Jews in Samaria. There are two options. Option one was to travel through Samaria. And that would save you walking some dozens of miles, maybe 40-50 miles. So did I say that right? If you walked right through, yes, it would save you 40-50 miles. If you had the time, you were supposed to walk around. That might be an extra day and a half to do the walk. You were supposed to walk around. So you would avoid being polluted by Samaritan dirt and Samaritan dust. Then Samaritan food and water and so forth. But if you had to go through Samaritan territory, after you were done, after you crossed the border into Judea, or maybe if you're going north back into Galilee, you would do this. And just shake. You could even picture somebody. It's just taking their cuff out. You know? Guys, you know what I mean? Get little grass in your cuff and so on down there. And just shaking all that out to get all the Samaritan dust off you. Now, what he's saying is, if you go to that town, you're proclaiming the kingdom. They should receive you. They should take care of you. Don't have to take care of yourself. Towns are close together. They're waiting. They've heard of the miracles. They've heard of John. They're expecting God to deliver. They'll take care of you. And if not, treat them as you would treat us Samaritan. Move on. You know, that too is, I think, somewhat relevant for Christian mission. He goes on to say, a little bit later, you know, leave that town. And then a little bit later, he says, you know, if you're persecuted, verse 22, 23, if you're persecuted, if men hate you because of me, if you're persecuted, verse 23, flee to another place. If you're persecuted in one place, I tell you the truth. You will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. And this reminds us that there's a certain haste to mission. If people don't receive you, there is a place in a time to say, I'm done. I said what I had to say, I'm moving on. And if people persecute you, don't, Jesus says, stubbornly stay there and get killed. I mean, sometimes it's the right thing to get killed. But basically, if they persecute you, don't stay and get slaughtered. And don't compromise. Don't change your theology. Change your geography. Move on. The time is not unlimited. And now, somebody may say, that's harsh. How can you just stay for a few days and leave, shake the dust off? My answer to that would be this, which is more cruel? To tell people, if you reject the message of the kingdom, God's judgment rests on you and I'm moving on, is that cruel? Or is it more cruel to give people the impression that they can accept Christ anytime and they can say no for years and years and they can reject the messengers anytime they want and will always be here to come back and talk to them more. Given the impression that a series of rejections have no consequences. Jesus, much more briefly, describes the dangers of a disciple. As he goes out, verses 17 to 23, the fact that they'll be betrayed, they'll be handed over, he says, you know. In one of those odd verses, we don't quite know how to take. I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves, therefore be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves. Shrewd as snakes. Stay out of trouble. Stay out of danger as best you can. A gentle as doves, the word gentle there probably means perhaps guileless. Be like a snake, avoid trouble. Don't seek to be a martyr for God's sake. On the other hand, don't be so subtle that nobody even knows what you stand for. There's a time to be guileless and just say, look, here's the way it is, this is what I believe. Sometimes you're a snake, sometimes you're a dove, sometimes you're very crafty, hiding yourself, waiting for the moment, other times you just say what you have to say. You've figured out which one is which, which one is when, but you need a little bit of both in the Christian industry. 24 and 25 service of summary, and I'll just start to talk about that and then take a question or two, if you have them about Christian ministry. A student is not above his teacher. There's a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. Here's your goal in ministry, to be like your teacher. That's Jesus. And that would be enough. He starts off, Jesus ministered first to the Jew. He did word and work, he proclaimed and healed. He traveled from town to town. You do the same things. And just as Jesus receives opposition, even death threats, you will too. This is Jesus sometimes changes geography so he can keep his ministry. You do that too. You try to live up to me and your steadfastness to your mission and flexibility were necessary. I'll develop that a little bit more later, but I feel like I've been talking for a while, so maybe I have a question or comment. I'd like to make about these things and how they bear in Christian ministry, yes. The question is, how does the story of Jesus healing the daughter of the Sire Phoenician woman figure into all this? I talked about that in our first night together, but it's from Matthew 15. So that's later. And that was definitely a part of the process. You ask, was that event part of the process of learning that we don't just go to the Jews, we go to the Gentiles, absolutely. They're hearing it in just a little tiny little bites, you know, you're going to give a testimony of the Gentiles someday, first 18. Well, he just barely mentions it and moves on. This business of only going to the Jews is true for now, but there'll be a time when it's not true anymore. It's just barely, he barely hints at it, and we perhaps presume they didn't quite get it. And then 15, they experience it, they might say, in the opportunity to decide, well, how does Jesus view this Gentile dog? Well, if user is someone worthy of his blessing and his ministry, right? Any other questions? Okay, let's move on and think a little bit more about this idea of a disciple being like his master. I find this to be one of the themes that I want to meditate on, someone. In Matthew chapter 5, we looked at the Beatitudes. We saw that their description of blessed character, we also saw their description of Christ, right? And if you look carefully at the things that Jesus asks a disciple to do, what you find is, they're the things that he does himself. I've hinted at it a little bit, but I want to give him in more detail. Jesus says, go first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That's where he went first, his destination in theirs is the same. The message, proclaim the kingdom, and heal the sick, the same. Third, give freely Jesus said, Jesus never charged for his miracles, so far as I know it never took up a collection. Can you imagine how much Jesus could have charged for raising the dead, for healing people who are paralyzed? You know, there were no other hospitals or no other therapy means in town, give freely Jesus says. And he confers power to the disciples, so they too should give freely, freely of receive, or say, freely you shall give. The provision. Jesus took no provision, no gold, no silver with him. He says to the disciples, you take no provision with you. He tells that the disciples be shrewd yet innocent. He was shrewd yet innocent. Shrewd, so when people began to get hot and oppressive, the Pharisees plotting to kill him before the hour, he'd leave. He would withdraw. He'd start talking in parables, so they wouldn't know exactly how to pin him down. You do the same thing. And yet innocent, when the time came, he would always tell the truth, always tell it plainly when necessary. Persecution, part of the lot of the disciples, rumbles about more in the future, already the first rumblings of persecution for Jesus. Jesus is saying, over and over again, you want to understand the contours of the Christian life? You have to understand me. Jesus puts himself in the store. He puts himself in the teaching. He is the Beatitudes. He embodies them all. He is the one who shows us how to ministry. He is the sower. He is the one who forgives sins as he commands us to forgive sins. He is the one who comes like a thief in the night. So much of his teaching is first of all fulfilled in himself. This is a theme, a Christian theme that I would encourage you to meditate upon. A disciple is not above his teacher. It is enough for him to be like his teacher. Said here in 1024 and 1025. It is also stated in five other places in the Gospels. Let me just read you a couple of them. Just slightly different words. Luke 640, a student is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. And John 1316, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. John 1520, remember the words I spoke to you. No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, it will persecute you. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours as well. Jesus repeatedly encourages us to see himself and to aspire to himself as a model of Christian living. Well, one of the mod ways in which Jesus models Christian living is in his fearlessness, which comes next in chapter 10. Chapter 10, verse 26, through 31. Jesus says, don't be afraid of them if they are persecuting you. And then again at the end, he says, don't be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows. They can kill your body, but they cannot kill your soul. If God sees the death of a sparrow, don't fear. He sees your life as well. 1032 to 42 describes one more time, the disciples, the workers condition, describes the confession of a disciple, verse 32 and 33, whoever acknowledges me before man, I will acknowledge before my father in heaven. He tells them that even though he is the prince of peace, he comes to bring a sword on the earth. He comes to set a man against his father, a daughter, a mother. A man's enemies will be within his own household. We should be glad, I suppose, that we don't have to face this sort of thing very much in a country like America where there are so many Christian families. But I can't help but think even as this is being taped, some of these tapes may go to places like Egypt and India and Brazil and so forth. I mean, not just a vague chance but a specific chance. And it's not exactly the same way there, is it? And furthermore, even in our towns, I suppose many of us know people who have alive themselves with another branch of Christendom, perhaps one of the more dead sides, I'm not meaning to give a blanket condemnation, but one of the dead sides of Catholicism, and when you came over to a vibrant faith, not in the church but in Christ, people weren't real happy. And I'll tell you furthermore that if you have a minister to people like that, you will see it in your own life. I have at least on one occasion had people swear they were going to kill me because I perverted their son no longer as son of the church, going over that wacko Protestant church over there. And if he ever shows his face around here, I'll show him my shotgun and so forth. No, I don't think they really meant it. I think they were just talking but they said it. And I didn't hear it with my own ears, but I heard it from somebody who heard it and they were my friend. There is a price to be paid. Did I go back over there? No, I didn't. No need. See it says at verse 23, what does it say? It says, when you're persecuted in one place, lead to another. I'm just obeying the Bible. But we have to be willing to pay a price. We have to be willing to love Jesus more than family. We have to be willing to love Jesus more than we love ourselves. 37 says more than we even love our own life. To share in his ministry is a wonderful thing, a blessed thing, to give a cup of cold water. His name will get its reward Jesus closes. But it's a reward received at a cost. Jesus is very realistic about what it means to go out and I would even go back to my opening comment here. I would encourage you to evaluate where you stand on this continuum. The very fact that you're taking a seminary course on the life of Christ indicates to me that you're probably far enough along the line. You better be aware of being well fed. And maybe push over in this direction of getting out there. There's no way to learn Christian ministry better than by doing Christian ministry. As one theologian said, do and you will know. Do and you will know. You know things in one way without doing them. But when you hear it, study it and then you do it, then you really know it. The grandeur of it all, being like Christ, sharing in his ministry, but also the difficulty. But what happened in response? Do you know Jesus sent out his disciples? What happened? Was it tell? Was it say? Chapter 10, verse 42. Jesus speaks 11-1 after Jesus finished instructing his disciples. He went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. What happened? It doesn't say. Not in so many words, does it? In Luke it says when another group I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven about another mission. What happened? Well, I think it kind of hangs in the air. But if you look through 11 and 12 together, you can see what happened. What happened first of all is that even some of the people, well, I'll just say globally speaking, broadly speaking, there's a lot of misunderstanding and opposition. This understanding comes from John the Baptist. He's in prison. He says, are you the one who was the comer? Should we expect somebody else? Jesus' pattern of ministry throws him off. Maybe some other faithful people are surprised that Jesus is not marching on Jerusalem and throwing out the Romans and so on. This is the pattern of his ministry. So John isn't quite sure about things. Not only that, but after Jesus answers John, he then says, I am the one who's the comer. I perform the miracles in the Messiah. Don't worry about that. I believe we cited some of those from Isaiah 61 and Isaiah 35 last time. These are Messianic deeds. Then he starts talking about John the Baptist. And he praises John the Baptist and calls John the Baptist. What does he call John the Baptist? He's the greatest, the greatest what? He is the greatest prophet. There's no prophet like John. No one born of women like John. John is a great prophet. And the people by and large were fascinated by John. But it's also true that by and large it didn't respond him. Verse 16, to what can I compare this generation? 11-16. They're like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to others. We played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sang a dirge and you did not mourn. I'll tell you that's one of the Bible verses I always wondered about for a long time. Let's tell you what it means. And it goes on to say John came neither eating or drinking. They said he has a demon. The son of man, that's Jesus of course, comes eating and drinking and they say here is a glutton and a drunkard and the friend of tax collectors and sinners. What he's saying is this. John's having his doubts and maybe we could beat up on John for that. No. John is a great prophet. He's in jail and you know you sometimes might have doubts when you're in jail unjustly and so forth. Jesus makes it clear John's a mighty man of God. People chose not to respond to John but they also chose not to respond to the son of man. This generation is like a bunch of kids sitting on a stoop and they're saying, what are we going to do? What are we going to do today? And like some kids, they don't really want to do anything. So somebody comes up and they say, well let's dance. Let's sing a song. Let's get out of flute and let's dance. I'm sure they didn't have rock and roll back then but let's dance. Let's get some music going here. We don't want to dance. We don't want to dance. All right. You don't want to dance. You don't want to play happy. You don't want to play. Oh, we do move you to dance in the ancient world for a wedding. You don't want to play wedding. You don't want to play happy celebration. All right. Let's play funeral. We'll sing a dirge for you. We'll march around with our heads down and pretend somebody died. That'd be fun. And they said, no, we don't want to do that either. We don't want to pretend it's a wedding and celebration. We don't want to pretend anybody died. We don't want to play happy. We don't want to play sad. We don't want to play. We just want to sit around a moep and criticize. That's what Jesus says. They didn't like John. They said, John has a demon. He's too negative. Listen to John. Acts is laid at the root of the trees repent. He's negative. What's wrong with him? He's got a demon. He's got an unhappy demon. All right. Jesus comes saying, let's eat drink. Let's have parties. Let's die. Let's get a lot of people together. Let's celebrate the kingdom of God is here. And everybody says he's a drunk. He's a bum. Look, he's associated with everybody. What's wrong with him? What's he so happy about? There's some people that can't be pleased. There's some people that can't be satisfied. And some people will criticize a God's agents if they come with judgment for being too negative, and if they come with a gospel for being too saccharin sweet. The problem is not with the message, but it's with the recipients. That's what Jesus is saying. He is hinting. Remember back to the harvest analogy. The harvest is ripe. Well, maybe these people are ripe for judgment. Because by and large, they have not responded positively to the message of Christ. In fact, there's the hint several times. They're going to call you members of the house of B. L's about. He says in 1025. And things are better for Sodom, Gomorrah, and the day of judgment for some of them. And here's why. No matter what the message is, they're not very happy with it. Let me just stop right there. Question or comment? See where we are in Jesus' ministry now. I'm trying to do two things at once. I'm trying to say to you, I'm early trying to do three things. I'm trying to say, here's how you study these passages. You got to know the context historically. I'm saying this is a message for ministry that applied then and applies now if you make the necessary changes. Like shaking the dust and figuring out what the analogy would be to that today and so forth. I'm also saying we have to understand this is a historic moment. This is the day when Jesus stopped ministering one on one with everybody and started to send out his emissaries who would multiply his work by 10. They could reach 12 times as many people, six times because they went out by 2s. Reach a lot more people. And the initial global response in Israel was fairly negative. Fair amount of resistance. Didn't like it. I'm saying that the generation is like those who don't want to dance. I'd say in the analogy that's used here. We played the flute for you is Jesus' statement about himself and John. See we can put this way. We played the flute. Jesus played the flute. Let's celebrate but they didn't want to dance. We sang a derge that'd be more like John. You didn't want to mourn. No matter what we wanted to do with you you wouldn't do that. Then maybe one more thing I should say here. Wisdom is justified or proved right or vindicated depending on your translation. Those are all not the same thing. By her children that is to say you'll see in the end the John and the Baptist and Jesus are the wisdom of God. You may not see it now but there will be a day when we'll be justified. When we her children will be proven to be wise and to be right and those who resist will be proven to be foolish. You're all thinking about this aren't you? This isn't the easiest thing to understand. I'll take one more remark about all this. There's a valuable lesson to be learned. If we compare Jesus' attitude toward those who are completely resistant to his message, shake the dust off, persecuting, calling on the members of the house to be else above, and his response to John. John's response to Jesus at this point is defective isn't it? He is showing doubt here. If there's a huge difference between doubt and unbelief. Now doubt is not good. Some people say well let's take our honest doubts to God as if doubt is almost as good as faith. Doubt is a condition in which you're between belief and unbelief sort of perched or hesitating between the two. But the believer who doubts is before God still heading in a certain direction. The person who's in the midst of the doubt may not see where they are. I mean that's see where it's going but God does and knows that the direction of their life and of their heart is toward him. And so although John could be taken to be deeply disappointing as response to Jesus, are you the one? Jesus knows that's doubt and what Jesus does with doubters is give them information and treat them tenderly. Think also of John the Baptist. I'm sorry I longed John the Baptist think of Thomas in his doubts. I will never believe unless I put literally in the Greek it's unless I stick my fist in your side. I'll never believe. Jesus says then later well here I am. If he doesn't rebuke him and say how dare you say such a thing. You who are with me all these years. He says go ahead there's my side. And you know Peter doubted as he was walking in the waves. Jesus doesn't say you clots you more. Why did you just stand the boat? He says get up. Why did you fear you know? But then there's the unbeliever and for them he has the unalloyed word of judgment. Shake the dust off your feet. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than their judgment.