Effective Mission

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
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Effective Mission

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 25 November 2012

After having called the twelve apostles, Matthew writes, "5 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. 9 Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, 10 nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.”

11 “Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. 12 And when you go into a household, greet it. 13 If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that city!”

Our Lord has trained the twelve disciples, and He is now about to send them out for the first time. That is, they are going not only to be trained, but they are going to preach the Gospel as well, to a harvest of lost souls. Don't misunderstand that the Lord has only in mind their education in their being sent; He has in mind the salvation of many people. Our Lord was in the process of disciplining them.

Our Lord was committed to giving Himself for an extended time to a few men so that they could be brought to maturity and equipped to reach their generation. And Jesus poured His power into them, and made them able to change the world. In Matthew 10:1, it says, "He called them and gave them power." It was power that could enable them to go way beyond anything their humanness ever dreamed possible, in the advance of the Kingdom.

As Jesus sends them, He gives them principles for their mission. The first principle for an effective mission is a divine commission and the sense of responsibility to our Lord. Secondly, he has to go out representing Christ with a central objective. We talked about how important it is to have a focus in your ministry and not to become so diversified that you wind up doing nothing very well.

One who represents Jesus on a mission for Christ must also have a clear message, “Tell them that the Kingdom is at hand." Their ministry, from alpha to omega, was all that they knew about the Kingdom of Heaven. Now let's come to the next point and pick up where we left off last time.

Those who represent Christ must also have confirming credentials they were send by God. If you were to go out and preach Jesus Christ, what reason would people have to believe anything you said was really from God? How would you know he was telling the truth? In fact, the disciples were opposite of the existing religious establishment. They hadn't been educated and they weren’t Pharisees.

Matthew 10:8 says, “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Those were the credentials of the apostles, and they were convincing enough to identify them as representatives of God. That was the way it was with Jesus. A blind man Jesus healed said to the Pharisees who had questioned him in John 9, “30 You do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! 33 If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing.”

So the ability to do these miracles points them out as being from God. But why specifically these kinds like healing miracles and raising the dead miracles? Look at the first credential: heal the sick, cleanse the lepers. What do these miracles mean to you? They were revealing the heart of God, because God cares for people who hurt, who suffer and who are poor.

The miracles showed the mercy of God, and explained to them that the Kingdom of Heaven when it was at hand, sick people got well and lepers lost their leprosy. In other words an element of the coming Kingdom was that God would remove all disease. So they got a little foretaste of what the Kingdom was all about.

One who truly represents Jesus Christ gives himself to the poor, the hurting, the needy, and the downtrodden. I wonder about people who claim to represent Jesus Christ and yet are devoted primarily to the rich and famous. They are under the illusion that the Kingdom of God is advanced by money and the rich, but they are very wrong.

People who represent a wicked world, who teach false doctrine do not manifest the compassion of God. The Old Testament says that wicked men oppress the poor (Ezekiel 18:12), sell the poor (Amos 2:6), crush the poor (Amos 5:11), persecute the poor (Psalm 10:2) and defraud the poor (Amos 8:5-6).

On the contrary God cares for them. He doesn't forget them (Psalm 9:18). He hears their cry (Psalm 69:33), maintains their right (Psalm 140:12), delivers, protects, exalts, and provides for them (Psalm 35:10; 12:5; 107:41; 68:10). Psalm 14:6 says, "The Lord is their refuge." They are even called 'my poor' in one text in the Old Testament.

What are our credentials? We cannot heal the sick or cleanse the lepers, but we can show the divine compassion those miracles were intended to demonstrate. Secondly it says: "raise the dead, cast out demons." That demonstrates real power. I mean the power to raise the dead and the power to invade the unseen world of the demons and overcome that kingdom, that is real incredible power!

Matthew 7 says how you can tell a false prophet, "By their fruits you will know them.” If you don't see any power, any changed lives, no dramatic transformations, or someone who was dead spiritually and come to life in Christ, then that person is not a true preacher, or a true representative of Christ. A true representative of Christ will be marked by God's power everywhere he goes.

The third credential is most interesting. At the end of verse 8, it says, "Freely you have received, freely give," which means unselfishness. Someone who truly represents Jesus Christ will not be in it for personal gain. Someone who says he represents Jesus Christ and then puts a price on his service has just forfeited the blessing from God.

On the other hand, the next principle is a confident faith. I believe God will meet my needs. Look at verse 9. He says to them, "Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts.” Then Jesus says in verse 10, "nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.”

Who made up that principle? God says, "I did, and I will manage the resources." So you don't take anything; this is like survival training - you go out there without anything. You are trying to teach these people confident faith, confident trust in the Lord. But on the other hand the people of God must see it as their duty to support those who serve them, for the worker is worthy of his food.

In 1 Corinthians 9:14, Paul says, "the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.” He means live by your preaching; be supported in it. We are not allowed to put a price, or make a demand, but to be unselfish. It's all up to God, right?

That brings me to the next principle, which is called contentment, whatever he receives, he is to be content. Contentment is so elusive, isn't it? Paul said in 1Timothy 6:6, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." He said it again in Philippians 4:11-12, “I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need”

And now we come to the two final principles. When the disciples found the worthy house, they were to stay and minister to those gracious, hospitable people. Once they had established their lodging, they could begin their ministry in that town, which was to preach the Gospel from house to house. Whenever they visited another home, they were to greet the people in it.

Concentrate on feeding the people who are willing to receive God's Word because they are the catalyst to change the world. On the mission field we call that finding “a man of peace.” Don't just say things to please them, but feed them the Gospel. Concentrate on the people who want to grow and who want to be nurtured. "When you find a house that receives you, pour out your peace on that house.”

Give them the Word of God if they want it. Find those places where God has prepared the hearts of those people so there is openness, and pour your heart into those places. Don't try to evangelize someone who is totally opposed to Christianity. That leads to the last principle, which is reject the contemptuous.

At the end of verse 13, Jesus says, “If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.” That was an Jewish expression; they would give their peace, but if the house wasn't worthy, they would take it back. In other words, they would un-bless an unworthy house.

It's the same thing in 2 John 1:10-11, where he said, “10 If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into your house nor greet him; 11 for he who greets him shares in his evil deeds.” In other words, "Don't pronounce benedictions on people who are godless." Don't say, "God bless you," to someone who isn't a believer. God's blessing is not to be given indiscriminately. Nor should people live under the illusion that they are truly blessed or redeemed when they are not.

Matthew 10:14, “And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet.” That was a physical thing the Jews did. When people traveled in the time of Christ, they would get covered with dust. When Jewish people returned to Israel, they did not want to bring Gentile soil into Israel because they believed it would defile the land. So before they entered Israel, they shook the dust off their shoes so they wouldn't bring any Gentile dirt back in.

So Jesus says, “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and if they don't want to hear your message, treat them the way you treat a Gentile.” That's what Paul did at the synagogue in Pisidia Antioch in Acts 13:51. He went in, and when they didn't receive his message, it says he shook the dust from off his feet and went next door to the Gentiles. He treated the Jews like Gentiles and the Gentiles like Jews.

You might say, "Wait a minute! Does this mean we are to reject the contemptuous? If I meet someone and tell them about Christ and they aren't interested, we should just say, “forget you and walk away?" Not quite. A lot of us wouldn't be redeemed if we had been treated in that manner, right? The point is this: when people have seen the miracles and have fully heard the Gospel and have been given ample opportunity to respond, yet they still reject Christ, then you are to leave and treat them as the pagans that they are.

In 2 Corinthians 5:20, Paul says, "We beg you in Christ's name, be reconciled to God." There is a begging, a pleading, a compelling! But when the pleading is done, and the credentials are manifest, and all the signs are given and they still refuse, treat them like pagans. Don't give them the benediction of God; just walk away.

Verse 15 is the key, “Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that city!” It wasn't very good for Sodom and Gomorrah, was it? Fire and brimstone rained down on both those cities and destroyed them so that they can't even be found today. In fact, they think they must be under the south end of the Dead Sea because they can't find any trace of them at all.

The destruction on those two cities was absolute, total and eternal, and the result will be the same for any house or city in Galilee that rejected the Gospel. This assumes that the towns or the houses in Galilee knew and heard more than Sodom and Gomorrah did. The point is that based on what Jesus had done they must have had a lot of information.

When a city has heard a lot of the truth of God (namely through the representatives of Christ Himself), and received the good news and the authentication from their ability to perform miracles, and still turns it’s back on that, it is impossible for them to be renewed to repentance (Hebrews 6:4-6). When they are unreceptive and contemptuous, don't waste your time. Divine judgment will come to that city or that house; and it will be severe.

What have we learned? The Lord sent out His twelve disciples two by two and gave them principles for an effective mission, namely: called by God with a central objective and a clear message, accompanied by an ability to do miracles as proof, a confident faith, being content in every situation. Concentrate on those who are receptive and reject those who are contemptuous. Those are standards for our service to Christ we all should follow.

Many of us can learn from this message, especially people who are pastors and missionaries. Perhaps you are thinking about going to the mission field or other Christian service. But really this applies to all of us, because all believers represent Christ. As we go through these principles, we see how they affect all of us and apply to all of our ministries.

Let me just ask this in conclusion: if God were to compare those principles He just gave to your life right now, would you really be considered a faithful missionary? Do you run your life and your representation of Christ by these standards? The world has all the wrong criteria; the world would never have picked any one of these twelve disciples to be missionaries. Only God has all the right requirements.

Patience, humility, punctuality (which demonstrates that you care for someone else by not making them waste their time waiting for you), and sacrifice (that you'd go out in the middle of the night), those are the things that God can use to make a man or woman into what He wants them to be. He picked these twelve, and taught them these principles for succesfull mission. May we be as effective as they were! Let us begin the Lord’s Supper.



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