The New Conquest

Proper 6, Year A Matthew 9:35-10:23

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Been proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, that the kingdom is here at hand to repent and enter into it. He has been healing people of sicknesses and leopards, who are and those who are lame and blind. He's also been casting out demons everywhere he goes. And as the people that he has healed come to him, and as he continues to go throughout all these villages and cities and the whole region, he is moved with compassion for the people, for these crowds. And in response, and out of his compassion, he looks to his disciples and he tells them that the harvest is plentiful. There is more than enough out there. He says, So pray to the Lord to send workers to gather the harvest. And then Jesus continues and he takes his 12 disciples and he says, So go and harvest. I have some workers here, go and harvest. And what he does as he moves them to go and harvest, to perform the same work that he's been doing, to multiply his action. He uses his disciples and he instills in them the same authority that he is wielding as he goes, so that they too are commissioned to do the very things that we were just told Jesus is doing. Jesus was casting out demons and healing and teaching about the kingdom of God. And he says, go and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand. Go and heal, go raise the dead, and go deliver people from demonic activity. They are to do the very thing that Jesus was already doing and continues to do. And then he instructs them, but don't go to the Gentiles. That'll come later. But I want you to go to the lost sheep of Israel. If you've been reading your Bible up to this point in Matthew, you're thinking, I thought Israel was God's people. Why is he sending them to God's people? Well, we're told right there in the passage, Matthew tells us, because they have become lost. They are wandering aimlessly without a shepherd. The leaders of Israel have left the sheep, and now they're lost. And this is the very ministry that we are told that Jesus orders his ministry first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. So Jesus was sent to the Jews. Jesus was sent to his own because they're lost and without a shepherd. And so he gathers his disciples and he says, We're going to go to them first. And then he further instructs them. On this campaign, on this ministry that I'm sending you out to do, there's a few things that you need to understand. One, you need to do it in my authority. Don't do anything else. Two, is that you need to go into these places and look for people of peace and stay with them. Don't take any money with you. The Lord will provide all that you need for this mission. This is his harvest. This is his field. And he will supply the workers in the field with everything they need to bring in his harvest so that he might enjoy the produce. This is kind of really hard for us, if I may pause here. We often think that we need to be in control, that if we're traveling to go somewhere, if we're on a mission to go and do something, we need to make sure we have our wallets and our keys and our phones. But the Lord teaches the disciples here that in his mission, in his work and in his ministry, that they are not to go in their own supply, but they must rely on God's supply. The greatest moment in my life that I learned this very thing about the providence and the provision of God is when I was desperate for a job. And I went to a place that I had no clue of, a place called Montana that I had never been before, into an oil field that I had never worked before, didn't know how to turn a wrench, didn't know what the oil field looked like or what your daily job would be working in the oil field. I took nothing with me, literally, but a bag that had like a change of clothes in it. I didn't know how long I was going to be there, I didn't know how long I would stay. I had done, I did some prep work online as much as I could to look for hotels so that I could stay somewhere, but all of them were booked. I looked for a car rental, all of them were booked. All I had was a one-way ticket to Montana to figure out how to find a job. I was desperate. And I went. And then the most wonderful thing began to unravel every literally step that I was taking. It started on the plane when I began to talk with people who were locals. What is the oil field? And they began to tell me, oh, my husband's in the oil field, and here's what he does, and you'll have no problem getting a job. Just go here, go there, go here. They were instructing me. I was learning about the area. I stepped off the plane into the small airport that you can literally walk right through in five seconds. It was wonderful. None of those long lines. And as I walked off the plane, I saw that there was this car rental job. Right? And so I see this guy go up to the desk and then he leaves. And I'm like, well, I'm wondering if he's turning in the car because I've checked already and I've checked on the way. There's nothing I can rent. So I mean, I arrived in that airport with not knowing where I was going to stay, where I was going to go, or how I was going to get there. I was going to I was planning on walking, I guess. I go up to that counter and I said, Do you happen to have any vehicles, any at all, that I can rent? She goes, Yeah, I got one Honda Accord that just got turned in. I said, I'll take it for three weeks. So I get those keys. Now I have a car to sleep in, a car to get around in. So I drive in this car and I'm going around town, learning the lay of the land, the familiarity of it all. And I drive by all these hotels and I stop at all these hotels because it's a Sunday. I don't have any other thing to do until Monday when everything opens up. And I stop at all these hotels and they have lines. Everybody's looking for a hotel. And I can hear everybody ahead of me in line, those exact words that everybody was receiving. We have no room. Everything's booked. So I drive around some more and I find this airport in. I'm like, well, that's a big airport. And the number of vehicles in the parking lot doesn't match up. It looks more empty than it ought to be. So I go. There's three people ahead of me in line. And they get dismissed one at a time. I step forward, the receptionist answers a phone call, the coworker comes up and says, How can I help you? And I said, Well, I think I already know this answer, but by chance, do you have a room? She taps on the keyboard and the and her computer and she goes, We do for an emergency. And I guess you're our emergency. And so she books me. I said, I'll take it for three weeks. And the person, the receptionist, gets off the phone and says, What are you doing? Well, we gave him the emergency room we were holding. And they're like, Halliburton had bought out the whole hotel. That's reserved. But I was already in the system. I'm like, thank you, had the keys. I went to my room. And what I learned in those moments is exactly what Christ is talking about. To be in such a position that you have to rely on the next thing that is revealed to you, that you have to continue asking the questions, even if you think you might know the answer. He is telling his disciples as you go into this harvest, as you go from town to town, mimic me. I have nowhere to lay my head, but the Lord has already taken care of me. My Father has given me everything that I need and will provide everything along the way. It's done in faith. But not only does he tell them not to take anything with them that the Lord will provide, but he also tells them about the dangers and the rejection that they will encounter. That they are to go to have this harvest that is plentiful, right? So it seems like from first word that they're going into this harvest and it's just gonna be easy, it's low-hanging fruit, their baskets are gonna be full, they're gonna be so busy. But Jesus says, but you're gonna go into some places that aren't ripe, that are going to reject you. And I don't want you to be confused or unaware, my brothers. You're gonna face rejection. And if you do, just move on. The harvest is plentiful. Continue to move on. And then you're gonna face all kinds of dangers. They will scourge you. You're gonna get hurt. There are gonna be moments in this harvest that you're going to suffer. I've been rejected. We can read about the ministry of Christ and see where he gets rejected. We can see where they even seek to kill him. And he warns his disciples, you're not going to be treated any better than I was treated. And you need to be aware of this. So this is our gospel lesson. But what is ultimately going on? What is Jesus trying to accomplish? And I need to recall to your mind something that happened in the Old Testament that is happening here. It's a conquest. It's Joshua. Joshua leads the 12 tribes of Israel into the promised land and they conquest it. They take it over, right? They kick all the bad out and they claim the land for themselves, for the one true God. So what is happening here in this part of Jesus' ministry? He has been baptized in the Jordan and comes in and he is on a conquest. His name in Greek is Yeshua, which is the Greek form of Joshua. Jesus is the better Joshua who is initiating a conquest, not to take over one parcel of land, but the whole entire world. And how does he plan on doing this? Not with swords and weapons, not with utter destruction and the burning of cities. Instead, he's going to be doing this conquest and taking over the world through healing it, through harvesting people into it. That's the conquest. That's what he's doing. And he's using his 12 men to do it. And so that is what has really happened behind the scenes. This isn't a war conquest. This is a spiritual conquest to bring and usher in the whole kingdom of God into the whole entire world. And Jesus invites us into it. We are the extension of the workers that he is asking to help gather up the people, gather up the places of the world, and claim them for Jesus as his. That is what is happening. But there's a few things that we can understand for our own personal lives through Jesus' instructions to these 12 disciples. What we learn is that it first begins with prayer, right? Jesus says, Hey, pray. Pray to the Lord, because the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So he says, you need to plead for God. This is his harvest. But assist me in praying. Because Jesus was already doing the work and he employs his disciples, I need you to assist me in prayer. This we begin to learn our first lesson that we can ask, this is why we ask each other to help pray. You have a concern, you have a need, you employ others to help assist you in your prayer so that God can hear and act. And this is what Jesus does. So you're not above him. You can do this too. And I think we often do this when we lift up the names of those that we love, and we are asking God, when you lift up the name during the prayers of the people, you are asking all of us together to assist you in your prayers so that our voice in one is louder than your individual voice to God, and that God would hear and act on your behalf. To do the very thing that you're asking in his grace and mercy to provide. But not only are you to pray, notice that you are to be the active member of how that prayer is answered. Here's one of the things that dawned on me this week is that after Jesus tells his disciples to pray and to assist him in prayer for the harvest and for workers to go into the harvest, what does he literally do? Okay, now go and do. You are part of the answer. You just prayed for this and you don't sit idle by and waiting for God to deliver. You become the solution. You pray to assist, but you also pray for action and become the action. If you are asking for some healing in a loved one's life, what you ought to be doing is also being the source of comfort and healing in that person's life. If you are troubled of body and spirit, and you are asking for prayer, you are asking for the, you're inviting those people to come and help comfort you and give you peace in your life. Prayer is not just verbal, it's also an action. You pray and then you go, trusting the Lord to provide and make the action possible. That's how we are to live. But it's also something, this conquest that we're invited into is also something that has order to it. You do not go to places that are foreign to you quite yet. You begin at home. This is why there's an order to Jesus' ministry. We're told he goes to the Jews first and then the Gentiles. There's an order and structure by how God operates. It's not chaotic, it's not spontaneous. There you go, David. It's not spontaneous. It's ordered, it's methodical, it's logical, it's spiritual. Jesus comes and first tends to his house before he sends his disciples out to the Gentiles. This is a message for you. You start in your heart, making sure that your heart is being harvested, then you make sure your family's being harvested, then you turn to your neighbor and make sure your neighbor is being harvested. There's an order to that. And how do you go? Do you go violently? Is this conquest about violence? No, this conquest that Jesus initiated and continues to this very day is the conquest and the fulfillment of what Micah, the prophet Micah, says when he says, they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into what? Pruning hooks. Those are the weapons of the conquest. You don't go wielding swords, you go with your pruning hooks to prune, to gather up the harvest. That's this conquest. And that's what we all enjoy are joining in. But the conquest will also cost. As you go from your heart to your home, to your neighbor, you move through the places that are rejecting you. You still go there, but you move on from them. Rejection and persecution is the sign that it is not yet ripe. So move on to the ripe fruit. Don't let it spoil. Go to the places where the low-hanging fruit is and gather that. Don't be stopped. But know that you along the way will receive rejection and persecution. And this again is something that we are to do today. The conquest isn't over, it continues with us in the church today. We are to go and do the exact same things that Jesus employed his disciples and that they'd employed their disciples to do, and that through all of church history is told to be done, continue the conquest until the Lord returns. That is claiming all the world for the kingdom to gather in all the pieces of ripe fruit that are all over the world. There's more than enough to be doing. You need to be getting on doing it. It begins with you and your family and extends to your neighbor. And as all of us are doing this, we are advancing this kingdom and advancing this conquest. It's plentiful. So if you haven't been harvesting anything, it's just because you're not getting on with getting on. Either Jesus is lying that the harvest is plentiful, or he really means there's more than enough to gather. Go look for places. If you run into an unripe place or something that's rejected, move on to the next. You could find it. It's like blueberry bushes that we have. There are some plants that have a bunch, and there's some that's not quite ready. We skip that one, we go on to the next. That's what we do. The harvest is plentiful. But just because you meet rejection and persecution doesn't mean that it won't become ripe. This is another important lesson for us as we engage with the world that does despise Christ, that will rebuke you, that will seek to make you suffer and persecute you. What are you to do? And here's where the brilliance of Christ is. Christ says it's not yet ripe, but maybe it needs a little fertilizer. Sometimes things need a little help to get it to become ripe. And Jesus says, and this is the purpose of your suffering and your persecution. That through your suffering and persecution, it becomes the fertilizer upon that ground that is not yet ripe, that has rejected you, so that it might come to ripen and you can harvest it. Suffering is with is intentional. That even those who seek to do bad, God Jesus works for the good for his purposes. That your suffering, though it may seem horrible and fearful, that your life and your blood may be shed, it will not be wasted, and will go to continue advancing this conquest. How do you know this? Because we see this in the example of Christ on the cross himself. Christ, already beaten, already being persecuted, up on the cross, the whole crowd around him is mocking him, is rejecting him. Christ has been rejected, hence the cross. But he takes that rejection and that persecution and he uses it for a moment to fertilize the ground and produce right fruit to be harvested. And we see that in the centurion. The centurion beat him, mocked him. Christ prayed for him. Christ shed his blood and says, forgive them, for they don't know what they do. And when Christ gave up his life on the cross, what are the words out of the mouth of that very centurion that was not right? He was truly the Son of God. Could you, like Christ, walk in your suffering and persecution in order that the ground that you're trying to gather the harvest in can fertilize it with your suffering and persecution so that you can bring in the harvest for King Jesus, who has sent you on a conquest. That's what we learn. We learn that we have we don't have an option not to do this. He has called the church to do this until he returns. He says, You won't go through all the cities until I return. But go into all the cities. Continue this conquest. It's a mission that is not yet over. And it won't be over until I return. So we are not just spectators or conceptual about this conquest. It's just not a cool idea. It is something that we should be actively doing if you are a Christian and you are part of what we call the church. You have a purpose that supersedes everything else in your life. We are soldiers who don't wield swords but pruning hooks to gather the fruit in. We pray. And then we go. We take nothing but the Lord's provision and power with us. We expect that the Lord will provide. And we won't fear the rejection and persecution we might face in their suffering because we know that too will be useful for this campaign. We keep harvesting until the commander returns. This is our job. This is our marching order. This is what each and every one of us need to be committed as one to be doing. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us pray. Jesus, we thank you so much for.