Jesus commissions his disciples and tells them to go into the countryside and spread the news of the Kingdom of God... but he told them to take nothing with them. Why? Listen in as Thomas Terry delivers this engaging sermon.
Transcript
Welcome to this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. We hope this message inspires you, roots you down deep into the Lord, into His Word, and may His Spirit be your guide as you enjoy this teaching. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the message. Trinity Church, this morning’s sermon comes from Mark chapter 6, verses 7 through 13. And he, that is Jesus, called the twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 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. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. Trinity Church, this is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Well in our text this morning, we get to see this unique progression of Jesus’s discipleship ministry. If you were to look back to the very first chapter of Mark, you would see that Jesus began his ministry discipleship program first by calling a few specific men into his discipleship ministry. We saw Jesus call these two pairs of brothers, Simon and Andrew and James and John. These men were fishermen by vocation. So there was nothing special or spectacular about these men. In fact, they were just ordinary, middle class, uneducated, hardworking fishermen. And then in chapter two, we saw Jesus call this scandalous and socially detested tax
collector, Levi, who’s also known as Matthew, which would have been considered controversial in this culture because Levi was a Jewish tax collector. Jewish tax collectors were hated by the Jewish community because they were considered extortioners, corrupt tax collectors in partnership with the Roman government. So in chapters one and two, Jesus calls both the ordinary and the controversial into his discipleship program. And so it appears at first glance that Jesus is calling or better yet, choosing men from the bottom of the religious barrel to string together this ministry discipleship program, which by the way, should be an encouragement to us this morning, that Jesus is in the business of choosing the most unlikely candidates for ministry. But then we move into chapter three, verses 13, and we see that his discipleship program really begins to take shape as Jesus moves from simply calling men into this discipleship
Jesus’s Discipleship Progression
program to appointing these 12 specific apostles. So Jesus’s apostolic apprenticeship was now closed in terms of enrollment. And Jesus begins this intensive with these men. He personally begins teaching these apostles by way of life lessons about his message, his power, and his authority. And of course, the ultimate goal here is that Jesus will eventually send these men out with the same message, in the same power, and in the same authority that Jesus exercised in his ministry. And so this brings us this morning to the next phase in Jesus’s discipleship program, the phase that puts all of the program into practice, where everything that the disciples had observed and heard from the life and ministry of Jesus will now be worked out and replicated by these men. These disciples move from being simply observers of ministry to being participants in the ministry of preaching.
And all of this will be done under the authority of Jesus. See, Jesus’s preaching was his ministry paradigm and priority. We’ve seen this everywhere in Mark. This was made clear in Mark chapter 1, verse 38, where Jesus, after a long night of healing and casting out demons, says to his disciples, let’s go on to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. You also see his preaching paradigm and priority at the end of our verse from last week’s passage in chapter 6, verse 6. It says, and he went about among the villages teaching. Jesus’s paradigm for ministry was to go from place to place to preach. And so here in our text this morning, Jesus is now preparing to send his disciples two by two in this mini commission to go into various towns to do the work of preaching
and teaching. And what are these disciples to preach specifically on this mini commission? Well, if they’re to follow the pattern of Jesus, then we see the main content of Jesus’s preaching ministry in Mark chapter 1, verses 14 and 15.
Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel
— Mark 1
(ESV)
. These disciples are being sent out by Jesus to preach the message of repentance and belief in the gospel. So Jesus’s discipleship progression moves from calling in chapters 1 and 2 to appointing in chapter 3. And now here in chapter 6, we come to the commissioning or the sending. Now a couple of things to point out before we dive into the meat of our text this morning. The first is that what we see here in this sending of the disciples and the specific
instructions or commands that Jesus gives his disciples are unique to these 12 apostles. So we should not look at this specific passage as prescriptive in terms of our unique ministry and our specific context. These men were commissioned by Jesus to preach in a very specific region at a very specific time to a very specific people, primarily to a Jewish context. So the people they were commissioned to minister to, they had in many ways a religious framework. These would be the same types of people that John the Baptist was ministering to. People who would be anticipating the coming of the Messiah. So the message of repentance and the kingdom of God would not be foreign to this particular audience. So the way in which Jesus sends these men out, the specific Jewish audience, would be awaiting for the arrival of the Messiah. But just because this is a Jewish or religious audience doesn’t mean that the message will
The Sending Strategy
be universally received by all people. Much like how Jesus’ message wasn’t universally received by all people. Which is why, if you remember last week, Jesus modeled for his disciples just before he sends them out to do ministry with this life lesson that people will not always receive what you have to say concerning Jesus and his message, especially if they know you and they know where you come from. So this mini commission here is very specific and unique to these apostles. But just because the mission and the commands are specific to these apostles doesn’t mean that there aren’t specific things that we can take away from the text this morning. There is some unique wisdom and application from this passage that is relevant to our context and our culture. And we’re going to flesh that out a bit as we move along in this text. The second thing I want to bring to your attention is the symmetry between Mark 3 and Mark 6.
Because when you look at the symmetry of these two chapters, you begin to see this pattern emerge. So for example, in Mark 3, in verse 1, Jesus preaches in the synagogue. In verses 2-5, the people observe his authoritative preaching. In verse 6, the people reject his preaching. In verse 7, Jesus leaves to preach in other areas. And in verse 13, Jesus gives his preaching authority to his disciples. And in chapter 6, you see almost the exact same thing. In verses 1 and 2, Jesus again preaches in the synagogue. In the second half of verse 2, the people observe his authoritative preaching. In verse 3, the people reject his preaching. In verse 6, Jesus leaves to preach in other areas. And in verse 7, Jesus again gives his preaching authority to his disciples. And so this morning, what you’ll see is Jesus is continuing his pattern of ministry by sending
out his disciples to replicate his ministry. So Jesus will instruct his disciples to do exactly what he did in chapter 3 and in chapter 6. You are to go and preach in a way where people observe your authoritative preaching. You are to go and preach in such a way where there is a high probability of being rejected. And if you are rejected, you are to leave from that place and preach in other areas. See, Jesus sets the pattern for his disciples and his disciples will follow it to a T. So again, I’ve broken up our passage this morning into three sections. In verse 7, we’ll look at the sending. In verse 8 through 11, the instructions. And verses 12 through 13, the mission. So let’s begin in verse 7 with the sending. And he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two.
So Jesus’s strategy for sending the disciples out for ministry is first and foremost to send them in pairs. Now why does Jesus send them in groups of two? Well there’s a legal reason and there’s a practical reason. So first the legal reason. These men were doing ministry in a very suspicious culture. In this culture, you would need a minimum of two witnesses in order to establish a case for pretty much anything. So if you had a charge against someone, you needed a witness or you were going to be dismissed or discredited. You witnessed something amazing or supernatural, you better have a witness or no one will believe you. It didn’t matter how influential you were or your social status. There was no such thing in this culture as a character witness. It didn’t matter. You needed a witness. For you to be taken serious about anything, you needed to have a witness.
In fact, the Old Testament tells us in Deuteronomy that the testimony of anyone is only confirmed on the basis of two or three witnesses. And you see this fleshed out in the New Testament, especially as it comes to church discipline. So Jesus sends them out to give testimony, to give witness. See, this is legal language to confirm what is true concerning Jesus Christ and his ministry. And in order for it to be confirmed, it must be on the basis of two or three witnesses. So Jesus sends each disciple to be a witness, but he pairs them with another witness. See, these disciples were going to go and bear witness about everything they’ve seen and heard concerning the life and ministry of Jesus. And you have to remember, they’ve seen some pretty crazy stuff. These disciples have seen some things about Jesus. I mean, so far, these disciples have seen Jesus cast out thousands of demons.
He’s stilled the raging sea and the violent winds. He’s healed massive amounts of people. He’s even raised a dead girl back to life. And these disciples are about to go and give an account to people about everything they’ve seen and heard. And in this culture, given the degree of Jesus’s supernatural work, it is vital that they have a witness. So that’s the legal reason, but there’s also a very practical reason. And this is relevant to us this morning. Jesus also sends them in pairs for accountability, for fellowship, for protection, for support, for confidence, and for encouragement. See, ministry in any capacity, whether it’s parenting or the mission field, is extremely hard. It can be lonely and discouraging at times. There are moments when it’s so hard that we want to call it quits and bail out. There’s also a very real and dark spiritual component to ministry.
When you are the most faithful in ministry, the forces of evil are most active against you, making you feel depressed, causing for you to doubt your effectiveness and your faithfulness. And so it is God’s gift to us in ministry to have ministry partners, people who will not only hold you accountable, but people who will hold up your head and help you to look upward and heavenward. There’s also protection when it comes to ministry partnership. Those who will actually pray for you when they say that they’ll pray for you. Those who will fight with you and fight for you as you fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is support and encouragement that comes from ministry partnership. People who will help you see your blind spots. People that will fan the flame of your particular spiritual gifts. People who will remind you of who you are and whose you are.
And people who will remind you of the gospel when you forget it. There is a confidence and a boldness in ministry when you lock arms with people who are faithful Christians. And there’s also a sweetness in ministry that comes from true Christian fellowship. When you get to share the stories of God’s victory in your life. When you get to share the stories of God’s faithfulness. We need this kind of friendship in the faith. We need fellowship to flourish as Christians. Fellowship is God’s gift to us. And just a quick note, friendship and fellowship are two totally different things. While it is true that you can’t have fellowship without friendship, you can have friendship without having fellowship. See, just because you have friends who happen to be Christian doesn’t automatically mean that when you’re hanging out, you’re fellowshipping. See, a lot of people get that confused.
A lot of Christians get that twisted. Fellowship is exclusively reserved for Christians and should be spiritually life-giving. Fellowship is intentionally aiming to meet the spiritual needs of other people. Fellowship is when your friendship is centered around Jesus. So whether it’s encouragement or prayer or opening up the scriptures or reminding each other of the hope that we have in Jesus when life is extremely difficult, when you feel broken because of this world, it doesn’t mean that you don’t laugh and you don’t find joy and experience fun times together. No, that is true. We do find laughter and joy in fellowship, especially when it comes from places of spiritual nourishment. So we should always be thinking about whether our friendships have graduated into fellowship. And if it hasn’t, we should be intentional about bridging that gap. So there is a very practical and necessary need for us to be in ministry partnership with people.
This is why Jesus pairs them up. And this two-by-two ministry motif is a paradigm that’s carried out in the book of Acts. We constantly see the apostles doing ministry in pairs. And sometimes their ministry is effective and fruitful, but there are times when their ministry is rejected and what a comfort there is for us to have someone who is walking with us when life is challenging to encourage us in the faith. What a gift from God to have someone to lean on when Christians face all kinds of rejection and persecution, when we walk through all kinds of difficulties in life. Fellowship, brothers and sisters, is a gift from God that becomes sweeter, a gift from God that becomes sweeter the more opposition you face in ministry. This is why Jesus sends them in pairs, so that they might have rich ministry partnership and camaraderie support in the work of ministry.
The second part of Jesus’s strategy is to give them authority. So he sends them in pairs, but he also sends them with authority. Look at the second half of verse 7, and he gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Now Mark here only emphasizes authority over demons, but it’s so much more than that. In Mark chapter 3 verse 14, Jesus sends them with authority to preach and cast out demons. So it’s essentially the same thing here. Mark just uses shorthand here to emphasize the authority behind the preaching. Mark is emphasizing the disruptive nature that occurs when someone preaches with the authority of Jesus. The point Mark is driving at here is that ministry is more than just words. It’s more than just content. It’s powerful. It’s spiritual. There’s cosmic forces at play, and there’s cosmic realities at stake. There is an intensity of demonic opposition.
There is a stirring in the kingdom of darkness when you preach authoritatively about the kingdom of light. So Jesus sends them with authority to preach that overcomes the kingdom of darkness. This is a divine extension of God’s power and authority that sits behind the words that you preach that overturns the darkness. See, you can fabricate authority if you have the gift of gab. If you can wax poetic, you can sound authoritative when you preach, but you can’t fabricate the effects or the fruit of faithful and authoritative preaching. There are people who can move you emotionally. There are people who can captivate you with words, but only the authority of Jesus, who is the word, can use the words that you say to move the hearts of dead people, to raise spiritually dead people to life. Only the authority of Jesus can affect meaningful and lasting change.
And so if these disciples were aiming at moving hearts, if their intentions were to raise spiritually dead people to life, then they needed to have the authority of Jesus to do it because everything else will fail. Everything else will be just words. So the same authority behind the words that Jesus spoke when he spoke nature into submission, when he casted out a legion of demons, when he raised this dead daughter from death to life, Jesus now extends to his disciples to go and do the same. This here is a snapshot of what we will see in the Great Commission. The only difference being that Jesus’s authority in this mini commission to this specific people in this specific time and culture was extended only to his apostles. But Jesus’s authority in the Great Commission is later universally extended to all of God’s people to do the work of ministry.
Instructions for Ministry
So Jesus begins the process of sending them out two by two with his authority. But before he launches them out into ministry, he first gives them the instructions. And we see that in verses eight through 11. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. 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. So Jesus gives these men their instructions for ministry. Now, these are not simply instructions that are a suggestion. You know, go do this to have fruitful and effective ministry. This is what these apostles needed to do.
This was a command from Jesus to these apostles. Jesus told them, don’t take anything for your journey except for a staff, some sandals, and one tunic. So essentially, Jesus is saying to these disciples, take protection, but don’t take provision. Now, when we filter this through our cultural grid, this seems completely foolish. It can almost be considered poor stewardship. Why would you embark on a missions trip with no resources? I mean, we hear about folks who are doing ministry in other parts of the world, and we intuitively know this is gonna cost money. Missions cost money. That’s why we give to missions, because it costs. There’s travel, there’s housing, there’s food, there’s insurance. We give money to provide for missionary work so that they can be about the work of missions and not about the work of trying to provide for themselves. But again, you have to remember, this is not prescriptive.
This is specific to these apostles. This isn’t necessarily our pattern when it comes to missions. So we don’t tell our missionaries, oh, just go and figure out, Jesus will provide for you. No, this reduction of resources was specific to the apostles. But listen, there are principles here that we can learn from this narrative. And just to be clear, this has nothing to do with the disciples getting rid of their money or rejecting wealth because it’s somehow inherently evil. No, it’s not anything like that. In fact, we’ll see later in this verse that God uses people who have money to help them with ministry work. This has everything to do with the disciples being challenged by Jesus to be completely dependent upon Jesus for the work of ministry. This has everything to do with disciples being completely trusting in Jesus that he will provide for all of their needs
as they work for his ministry. It’s interesting to me here that Jesus tells them to take a weapon. When I see this, there is complete dependence on the Lord to meet their needs, but there is also this human responsibility to protect themselves from those who would seek to harm them and their ministry as they travel. Now, I’m not a pacifist, and in no way do I think that the Lord is lacking in his concern for their protection. I think what we see here is that the means by which the Lord uses to keep them protected from harm is the very staff he tells them to take. I love that Jesus tells them to take a staff because it shows that Jesus was not a pacifist. Jesus is saying to his disciples as they go, trust that God will meet your needs
as you do God’s work. Now, many of you know, I came from a charismatic church. I was saved in a charismatic church, and a church used to always say this statement. They used to say, well, listen, if it’s the Lord’s will, then it’s the Lord’s bill. And I remember when I would hear that, it would make me cringe. In fact, I still cringe when I hear that. But it’s actually true in this specific scenario. The Lord commissioned these disciples to do his will. And Jesus says, don’t worry about anything. I’ll cover the bill. The Lord stripped them from their resources to provoke them to dependence. He kept them desperate and dependent on him for all their provision. And this is an important lesson for these disciples. They’re going to need to know that as they go out to do ministry, that God is going to provide for them in every possible way.
He is going to providentially provide for every aspect of their ministry, not just the provision of power and authority behind the words that they preach, but everything else, food, water, shelter, resources, everything. They will be completely dependent upon Jesus for it all. And these instructions here that Jesus gives them also promotes a sense of expediency. If you intend to move around in ministry, Jesus says to his disciples, then you got to travel light. You can’t be weighed down with all kinds of stuff. So you bring your sandals and you bring one tunic so that you can travel light and fast. Now, listen, I used to travel all the time for ministry. Between the last 10 and 15 years, I toured regularly. And you could always tell the difference between an artist who would tour all the time and an artist who barely toured by the way that they traveled.
If you toured all the time, if you were part of my crew and traveled with me, then you had one backpack, you had some toiletries and one to two outfits for about seven to 10 days. Now that might sound disgusting—we did take showers, but what you needed to know is if you intended to get through airports and then in tour vans and then transfer those clothes to a hotel and then back to the tour van and then into a venue and then back to a hotel, you needed to travel light. If you intended to be fast, you had to travel light if you wanted to get work done. And the point here is that when you travel with all kinds of clothes and things, you’re gonna be slowed down in every possible way. So Jesus instructs them to go with no money,
no resources and very little clothes and God will provide the rest. And just think for a moment, how will the Lord Jesus provide for these needs? He doesn’t provide by money falling from the sky or them finding bread under the rocks. No, the Lord uses the ordinary means of hospitality to provide for these men as they do ministry. See, God’s people are the ones that God uses to provide for God’s people. This is how hospitality works. When these men traveled to do the work of ministry, God moved on the hearts of his people to open up their homes, to cook meals, to put money in their pocket, to take care of their bills and the things that they had to have taken care of so that they can be about the hard work of ministry without feeling encumbered, without feeling the weight of need. See, there is a reality of feeling weighed down
because you have too many things, but there’s also the reality of feeling weighed down because you need things. And so hospitality helps make ministry work light. And brothers and sisters, this is how you partner in ministry with those who are traveling and preaching. We should be taking care of their needs so that they can be about the business of ministry. We should be practicing radical hospitality. This is a very practical exercise, but one that has huge spiritual implications. When you practice hospitality, you’re being used by God to provide for the unique needs of God’s people. God uses people to provide for God’s people through the ordinary means of hospitality. So we should be praying that God would make us sensitive to the unique needs of people, that God would give us the creativity to meet the needs of people through hospitality. And then Jesus here gives them a philosophy of ministry
that’s connected to the lack of hospitality. Essentially, he says to his disciples, when you go to a particular place to do ministry, if they don’t listen to you, if they don’t receive you, if they won’t hear your message, but instead reject you, leave, move on, shake the dust off your feet and go on to another place. If they reject the message that you’re preaching, leave. And of course, this presupposes something. It presupposes that you are actually preaching a message that has the possibility of being rejected. See, if you just tell people that Jesus is one of many ways to get to God, then no one’s gonna reject that message. If you tell people that God loves you and wants you to be healthy and wealthy and has a perfect plan for your life, then no one’s gonna reject that message. But if you tell them that Jesus
is the only way to get to God, that Jesus is God, that he came to the world to pay for the sins of this world in order that you might be made right with God and that in order for you to be made right with God, you must repent and believe in Jesus. If you preach an exclusive Jesus to be saved from your sins, to be reconciled to God, if you preach that message, then there’s really only one of two responses. There’s either a receiving of that message or a rejection of that message. And just to be clear, to be indifferent to the message of the exclusive Jesus is to reject Jesus. There is nothing neutral about Jesus. There’s nothing neutral about him. The gospel offends people. The gospel is offensive to people precisely because it confronts our pride and our self-sufficiency. It calls us out on our sin.
It points out all the things that are ugly about humanity and we don’t like it when people point out the ugly things about us. But the gospel also points to the beauty of the Savior, that God would love his people so much that he would come and lay his life down for us.
The Mission in Action
People, when they hear the message of Jesus, will respond one of two ways. They will either receive it or they will reject it. Now, this doesn’t mean that you act like a jerk when you preach it. You don’t say things that are cruel and unkind. No, you speak the truth. You speak the truth in love with warmth and compassion, extending to these people the same mercy that God extended to you when you were first made to believe his message. You make sure that you guard your speech and your conduct so that if they get upset or if they get offended about anything, it will be only because of the exclusivity of Jesus and because of the demands of the gospel. So Jesus tells them, if they reject it, if they reject it, shake the dust off your feet and move on. And when Jesus tells them to move on,
to shake the dust off your feet, this is a judgment from Jesus. This is an indictment by Jesus. See, when people reject the message of Jesus, they’re not rejecting you. They’re rejecting Jesus. You’re just the messenger for Jesus. Jesus instructs his disciples that if there is a rejection of the message, then you are to leave them to deal with the consequences of their rejection. This should be your perspective. But listen, there should be a sense that if people reject the message that we should feel grief. We should feel sorrow when people reject the beauty of the gospel. But that grief of people’s rejection should not prohibit us from moving on and ministering to other people. Their rejection has nothing to do with you. And it’s important for you to hear that. Unless you begin to think that you’re not good enough of a communicator,
that you’re not smart enough when it comes to unpacking the gospel. The rejection of the gospel is not a reflection of your lack of ministry skills or even your lack of ministry passion. It’s owing all to the hardness of their hearts. So be grieved. Experience sorrow when people reject the beauty of the gospel. But don’t be so discouraged that you start to question your ministry fruitfulness or your faithfulness or your effectiveness. God alone is the one who unlocks the hearts of people. You are simply called to tell them the truth. And listen, it’s not your job to judge people when they reject the gospel. That’s God’s job. It’s God’s job. And listen, God knows what he’s doing. He is compassionate and he’s fair in every way. The fact that he sends people like you and I into the world to tell them about the gospel
is an extension of God’s mercy to a dying world. And he’s using you to do it. Some will receive it. Some will reject it. Your job is to faithfully preach it just like the apostles. And after Jesus gives these men these very specific instructions, we see in verses 12 and 13 that they went on to do the mission, to do the work. Verse 12, so they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. So here you get a fuller picture of the mission of the apostles. They did exactly what God asked them to do, trusting that God would provide for all of their needs, that they would go in authority to do the miraculous. And the Lord was with them. He met their needs and he moved mightily in their ministry.
They preached, they cast out demons and they healed the sick. This is precisely what Jesus was doing in his ministry in and throughout the region. Jesus preached, he cast out demons and he healed the sick. And here we see the apostles following in the footsteps of Jesus doing exactly what their master did. And what did they preach? What did they preach? The same thing Jesus preached. We see this same thing in Mark chapter one, verse 15, when Jesus was preaching, he said, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. This is what Jesus always preached. The apostles preached in a way that pointed people to repentance and belief in Jesus. You see these apostles replicating to the T, the ministry of Jesus, both in terms of the priority of preaching, as well as the effects of the authoritative preaching.
Our Great Commission
As they preached the exclusive Jesus, the kingdom of darkness came under attack and people were liberated from the shackles of sin and Satan. Demons who once took up residency in the lives of people were cast out and people were healed from their sickness and disease. And not because these apostles were so gifted, not because they were so persuasive, but because of the authority of Jesus who delegated his authority to his apostles for this specific mission. Their success in their mission was owing all to Jesus. It was his authority, his provision, his instructions, his message and his gospel. And so it was all Jesus’s work. Now, what does this mean for us this morning? While we are not apostles, we are disciples of Jesus. While theirs was a mini commission, ours is a great commission. We are called by Jesus to zealously engage our world with the message of the gospel,
making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded them to do. We have been given the authority of Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations. That means whether you move away or whether you stay, we are called to go and do the work. We are the sent ones and we have everything we need for the specific mission that God has commissioned us to do. The Lord has given us the beautiful ministry partnership of his church. He has given us the promise that he will provide for all of our needs when we do his work. That means the power, the authority, and the grace and the means to do it. He has made us witnesses of his beautiful gospel and he has given us all authority to preach it faithfully,
whether people receive it or whether they reject it. Brothers and sisters, may God send us by the power of his Holy Spirit with his word to make Jesus known to this dying world by preaching the exclusive Jesus, a message of repentance and belief in Jesus Christ and him alone for the forgiveness of sins. That is the only way for them to be saved from their sins. And listen, if they reject it, we move on. We preach Jesus in other places. But if they receive it, praise be to God. We celebrate God’s work because it’s all of his work. It’s owing all to Jesus. It’s his work. It’s his authority. It’s his provisions, his instructions. It’s his message and it’s his beautiful gospel. Let’s pray.
Father, I do pray that as we take in this text, that we would see the various points in this text where we intersect with it, that we would see clearly what this means for us as your people, as your sent ones commissioned by you to do the work of ministry. I pray, O Lord and God, that we would take seriously the command to go and make disciples, baptizing people in the name of the Father and the Son and in the Holy Spirit. And I pray, God, that most importantly, we would understand the authority that you give us when we go, that we would understand your provision for us when we go, that you will provide all of our needs, both the power and the authority to proclaim it and the fruit that comes when people receive it. It’s owing all to you. I pray, God, that you would make us bold to proclaim it.
I pray, God, that you would make us dependent upon each other to stand as brothers and sisters to proclaim it. And I pray, O Lord and God, that you would help us to have a posture that exercises hospitality so that when we see others going and doing the work of ministry, that we would provide for their unique needs as they go. We pray all of these things in the mighty and authoritative name of Jesus. Thanks for joining us for this week’s sermon from Trinity Church in Portland, Oregon. If you’d like to learn more about us, you can visit our website at www.trinityportland.com.