Law & Grace - Matthew 10:1-23 Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel
Matthew 10:1-23 · Vern Peterman · Nov 6, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 43
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492625236243

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We will be going through the passage that Wayne introduced for us here in the passage that he read. Just to point out, and I put this in order that it doesn't get in the way, at the very last slide on the third page of your handout, that's what the number in the corner is telling us here. and is a pattern we've been pointing out and that is chapter 8 and chapter 9 and what's called a chiasm pattern. That's a kind of a mirror image in written form. So anyway, you can take a look at that.

We're going to shift to the second slide on page one here and uh... it's headed up with ready set go only i have it shown here is a sprint that's not quite right we're gonna do more of a marathon through it if you can handle that uh... no heavy breathing required though now at this point starting here in verse one jesus had called all twelve of his disciples And of course, that's quite easy to do, especially with the phones available these days.

The only problem with these J-phones, the J-phones do have a little bit of a problem in that they don't work on the Sabbath. Other than that, it works fine. So he had called all 12 of his disciples. Anyway. No, seriously. He had called the disciples.

They were along the Sea of Galilee and in that region. All of the disciples appear to be from that area. Even Matthew, who is not a fisherman, was still someone who was involved with collecting taxes there in Capernaum and along a major trade route that went along the west side of the Sea of Galilee. So it looked more like this.

He's preparing to send them out to the land and people of Israel to spread the gospel of the kingdom. We've been making a distinction with that. And to validate that gospel of the kingdom with miracles of various kinds. And he, of course, details in the passage what kinds of miracles.

He gives them both authorization. Yes, you are authorized to do this. And he gives them specific instructions. He tells them about who they are to go to. He tells them where to go. He tells them how they are to obtain support. And he actually puts a fair amount of detail into that. How they are to obtain support. We'll cover that. And he gives them precautions. And not in this passage, but in two of the other Gospels. He says, you are to go out two by two. So he sent them out. with this kind of preparation and instruction. Now there's a point of comparison we can make.

John the Baptist was the one to announce the coming of Christ. This was the initial announcement until he had come. This was the role of John the Baptist to prepare the way. He was preparing the way for the coming of Christ, the King of Israel, to the people of Israel and the land of Israel. And to do that, he ministered along the Jordan River. The disciples, these 12 now, are the ones to announce the presence, not just the coming, but He is here. The presence of Christ, the King of Israel, to the people of Israel in the land of Israel.

That was his assignment. Now, the gospel of the kingdom to Israel is not the gospel of substitution for all mankind. He had not actually presented that, at least as recorded in Matthew, at this point. It is also not the beginning of the church. It is a message to Israel about their king. Will they embrace and accept him as their king or not? And it was not yet the time when the church would begin. That was Acts chapter 2.

Now, you have in the middle of your handout a color-coded slide that looks like this. And it gives the 12 apostles, or disciples, for the passage we're looking at, and then in Mark, Mark 3 has a similar list, Luke 6, and then in Acts 1 where they're just in the time before the church is to begin. And so you see this lays out according to each of the four passages who the twelve disciples slash apostles are.

And so the initial assignment, I'm sure, was much like we had pictured here previously. Here's Peter, also known as Simon and a few other names we'll talk about shortly, and his brother Andrew. And then there is James and John, otherwise known as the sons of Zebedee. Others are, of course, listed, and we'll talk about some of them shortly. You can imagine him going along the Sea of Galilee.

They bring the fish in, and they're dealing with the nets. See, the thing with the nets, they had to fish at night. Why? It's because those fish aren't stupid. In those days, you could see the nets, right? So you had to fish at night. So you worked all night. And so getting the nets ready might be something you do towards the end of the day or when you come back when you have to mend them. And so Jesus would come along and call them and talk to them and be with them as they were doing their work.

So here we have this listing of these 12. Peter and Andrew are brothers, as were James and John. So we have two sets of brothers here among the 12. And you have the color coding of that, the blue in the case of Matthew here for Simon Peter. The first one lifted likely, not certainly, but likely, being the older of the two.

Thaddeus was another man with two names. Now, so Thaddeus was called Thaddeus and also Judas, son of Alphaeus. The typical pattern there was to identify someone as this is the son of so and so, and so that was the pattern. Even Peter gets called that at one point, Bar-Jonah, son of Jonah, right? This Judas is not the same as Judas the Betrayer, who is also listed at the last on the list that you have before you there. John, in his gospel, calls Bartholomew Nathaniel. So there's the identification between those.

Simon the Canaanite is the same man as Simon the Zealot. As a matter of fact, you may have it just translated as Simon the Zealot in some of your translations. This word Canaanean is simply the Aramaic word for zealot, right? So it's not, he's not Canaanite, but he is simply a zealot, and so it's two different languages there. All right, so you have this listing, and So here's Simon. It may, in fact, in your translations, just simply say Simon the Zealot.

And if so, that's great. Now, other notes on the 12. Peter is also, in different places, called Cephas. The Aramaic there was Cephas. And he is the author of 1 and 2 Peter. He was also called Barjona, and probably, just like me, called other things too, right? So at any rate, those are some of the names that we more commonly hear, Simon, Peter, and Cephas, or Kephas in his original language.

James was the first disciple or apostle to die. This is Acts chapter 12. And his brother John, the author of five books, was, so far as we have knowledge and record, the last. What's interesting is we have the name James here showing up As a matter of fact, if you look throughout the New Testament, you'll see it showing up several times. James is kind of the way we've adapted it. The original language was actually Jacob. Right? Everywhere it says James in the New Testament, the original language is actually Jacob. Jacobus.

Thomas was, yes, the one who doubted. I will not believe, he said, until I see the nail marks. and the wound in his side. I won't believe until I see that, until I can touch it. This is also called Thomas Didymus or Didymus Thomas, sometimes just Didymus. It simply means twin. Apparently he had a twin. I don't know that there was any other twins among the disciples, but that was another name he was called.

Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus there in the Garden of Gethsemane, was replaced, not only did he obviously have a great failure, but he also took his own life. So by qualifications and by lot, Matthias, Acts chapter 1 gives you that account, took his place. Now, one could wonder who Jesus paired up And we have from Mark 6, 7 and Luke 10, 1 that the disciples were sent out in pairs.

You can imagine as they're going out. Just imagine, you know, this sort of, not that much imagination, come on. Okay, more like this. What if Matthew, who was the former tax collector for the despised Romans, no, I didn't put enough emphasis, despised Romans, right? was paired up with Simon the Zealot, the Zealots being the ones who hated the Romans the most. Imagine that pairing. Okay, Matthew and Simon the Zealot, we're going to put the two of you together and you two work together.

Wouldn't that be interesting? We don't know, but interesting to ponder. One could always wonder about who was paired up with Judas. Wouldn't that later on just give you the creeps? I ate with that guy. You know? We stayed together. We walked together. He even prayed and things like that. So you could wonder. You could wonder.

Well, Jesus told his disciples not to go to the road that leads to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but to go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Okay? Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That means go only to the place where there's Israelites there and go only into those lands where they're supposed to be.

More like this. As a matter of fact, that lost sheep term is not one that Jesus came up with. It's one that is indeed out of the Old Testament. Psalm 119 and 176 personalizes it. As a matter of fact, At times you see various writers personalizing things in scripture. Personalize it. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. I have a similar kind of statement except that it's much more broad.

My people and my people Israel is the intended meaning there. Jeremiah 50 verse 6, my people Israel had become lost sheep. Their shepherds, the leaders of the Jews, had led them astray. Later on, we're going to see in the book of Matthew, just five chapters from now, Jesus will be presented with a woman who is Canaanite, and he says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He's very specific to the disciples. He's very specific as to what he was called to. See, in order to be happy sheep, they can't be lost sheep, right? They can't be lost sheep, because lost sheep get in need of things like this. where the sheep get out and they get into trouble, and like that.

I remember one time on my folks' ranch, we were walking along the road, and of course, we lived like two miles off the road and two miles from the nearest neighbor. And I can remember a friend and I were walking, and we heard this strange gurgling and snorting. I thought, what is that? And we kind of followed where the sound seemed to be coming from, and it was a sheep. that had gotten lost and had fallen down into a shallow well.

And so we got ropes and pulled this sheep out so that it wouldn't drown. But it was struggling. It had fallen in. And that's what happens to lost sheep. There are great hazards, likely even hazards to life. The sheep can lose their life if they get lost. Getting lost is dangerous. It's precarious.

You need happy sheep, right? Happy sheep are not lost sheep. From Matthew 9, 36 and 37 last Sunday, Jesus talked about sheep without a shepherd, which we mentioned was a common theme in the Old Testament. Zechariah 10, 2, he gave as an example. Therefore, the people wander like sheep. They're afflicted because there is no shepherd. They get lost. They wander.

And in Mark 6, 43, Christ makes a similar statement. So what does he tell them to do? In verse 7, here in Matthew 10, he says, tell them the gospel of the kingdom. That's what I want you to tell them. Go out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Don't go on a road that leads to the Gentiles. Don't even go to the Samaritans. Go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and tell them the kingdom of heaven is at hand. These are the same words that John the Baptist and Jesus had said.

In Matthew 3 2 & 4 7 the only difference being he prefaced that with repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent not meaning come up here to the front and kneel down and cry a lot. You know and get all emotionally upset. Repent meaning a change of mind. A change of mind. Why? They needed to repent from the path that they were going to a path of true fellowship and following the Lord and being obedient. And they need to have a change of mind. Why?

The kingdom of heaven is at hand. We'll talk about what that means here shortly. The kingdom of heaven is a euphemism for the kingdom of God. There are those who try to make a distinction. I believe that, on further study, that doesn't hold up. The kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are essentially synonyms. We have actually that habit, even in our own culture.

We would say, instead of God knows, we would say heaven knows. People will express, oh my God, and they'll substitute, oh my heavens. And we'll even use the word goodness in there. Goodness knows, right? Oh my goodness. But that's the term. It's only found in Matthew. Why?

It was a book written to the Jews who did not have a law, a rule, that said you should not use the name of God. But there was a tendency, a preference, for avoiding saying the name of God in vain. Kingdom of Heaven was a way of saying Kingdom of God without using the name God potentially in vain. Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven is the time when Christ, so this is looking to the future, time when Christ will come to Earth a second time.

He will come with us. with us, bringing us with him to reign as king over the nation of Israel, king of kings and lord of lords, to use the complete title, over all the Gentile nations. He will rule, as spelled out in both the Old and New Testaments, from Jerusalem.

At hand here is a figure of speech that means that it is near. Not in time, but in location, since Christ the King was right there in Israel. It can be used to mean time, but in that case you would say the hour is at hand, or the time is at hand, or the day is at hand. But without that, the at hand figure of speech means that he is very close. The offering is right here, he is present. That's their point. That's what they're supposed to go about telling people. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. The king himself is right here. He's with us. He's among us.

Verses 1 and then verse 8 speak about the disciples healing, performing miracles, as well as cleansing lepers, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Everything we've just been looking at in Matthew chapters 8 and 9. While we've seen that Jesus does all these things in 8 and 9, this is the first time we've seen any authorization for the disciples to do them. Previously, we know that they were there, they witnessed it, they were present. Now he's telling them, you have seen me, you go out and do it. And you proclaim the gospel of the kingdom. These miraculous events validated the message of the gospel of the kingdom.

Why would you need that? Well, it would be somewhat like when a police officer comes up, or somebody who says they're a police officer, you might say, give me some verification that you actually are a police officer before I answer your questions, do all the things that you tell me, and let you in my house. We want validation. We want verification. You are who you say you are.

And so these miracles were exactly that. Whether it was raising the dead or healing someone, casting out a demon, they were all validation and verification that he was in fact the person that he said he was. And as the disciples went out, that they were sent actually by Christ and carrying a true message and weren't just fake. The message from verses 9 through 15 that Jesus said to his disciples is that the people of Israel, the ones to whom you're going in the cities and towns, not in Samaria, not out to the Gentiles, but the people of Israel in the cities and towns where you're going should support you. As a matter of fact, if they don't, shake the dust off your feet, move on. But they should support you. That's their responsibility.

Matthew 10.15 says, Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the Day of Judgment than for that city.

What city? The city that rejects you. The city that rejects your message. The city that says, I see validation, but I still don't believe you. The city that says, not only do I not believe you, I won't support you. That was the ultimate expression of, I don't believe you and I don't want to hear this.

So he makes the comparison with Sodom. The original day of judgment for Sodom took place as we studied some time ago back in Genesis. That had been roughly 2,000 years earlier that Sodom had been judged. But you know that wasn't Sodom's final judgment. The people of Sodom still have a judgment before the Lord.

And that's what he's referring to. Israel's reception or rejection of the Messiah's messengers is a point of future judgment, not just judgment now. There will be a time when all those who are not believers will have to stand before the Lord and be judged on two things.

Number one, this is Revelation 20, 11 through 15, are the names in the book of life If they're not, that's why they're there. Second, be judged on the basis of their works. And a part of the works is not just stuff you do, but what do you believe? And did you reject truth? Jesus says in various passages, this is the first of them, that a more severe condemnation is coming for unbelievers for relative degrees of sins and for unbelief.

We won't go into that in any detail, but here's an example from the next passage. For you, Capernaum, this is Matthew 11, 23 and 24, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades, where if the miracles had occurred in Sodom, which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you. Capernaum, where many of these miracles we've just been reading in these chapters 8 and 9 took place.

Then in verse 16, he makes the comparison, sheep in the midst of wolves, shrewd as serpents, innocent as doves. The sheep in the midst of wolves illustration there is Christ's comparison to the spiritual environment. I have this wolf doing a leapfrog kind of game with one of the sheep. That's not what they're going to do, right? That's not what they're going to do. Instead, what does sheep in the midst of wolves mean? It means there's hazard, there's danger. He says, I'm sending you right in the middle of where there's danger. You don't want to be naive and ignorant of it, okay? Those sheep who have really aggressive looking teeth, those aren't sheep, right? Even if they try to look like it.

This animal analogy then shifts from the sheep and the wolves to a serpent and a dove, and there's a reason for that. It's intended to convey two critical characteristic traits. First is the serpent. Disciples must be careful, keen of insight, and perceptive. This is the as-serpent's comparison. Wise, shrewd, as the New American Standard puts it. So that's the one animal he says, and he actually says you need to be like that in certain respects.

But then he says, innocent as doves. So the disciples are not to be naive, and they're not to be like the serpents in the way of being cunning and biting. But they're also to have an innocent character. So this innocent and gentle character is as doves.

The point that I think we can draw from this, there are actually multiple applications. for what's supposed to go on in the church? What happens when we meet? Do we just sing happy clappy songs and say, God loves you and be nice? No. Both the church body and parents have times of sending believers or grown children out into the world. Nancy and I are at a place where we're done with that. We've already sent our kids off.

But why do we bring this up here? We don't want believers or, as parents, our children to go out into the world with either a naive nor a cunning character. Do we want our children to go out and get hurt by things? Do we want them to be unaware of hazards that are in front of them? No, we don't. We don't want that, do we? We want them to understand what the dangers are.

You see, when these kids are little, boy, they can really be quite a bit to get across to them. But, let's look at this word naïve here. I think it's a little strange. You ever notice there's this bottle of water called Evian? And then look at it, it's just naïve backwards. I don't know, that just seems a little strange to me.

Anyway, we do want believers to go out from this church and children to be sent out from their parents prepared to be prudent and insightful but not biting and worldly. That's why Jesus doesn't say be shrewd as serpents and then stop. He doesn't say be gentle as doves and then stop. He puts both there. Why? Because there's a combination of characteristics that are ideal. You have here a grid.

We're going to look at this initially and actually come back to it. This little grid shows, in one direction, greater godly spiritual character, and in the other direction, vertically, insight into the world. The thing that we would want to avoid, of course, is someone who gets completely sucked into the world, and ends up just emulating the world, sly, cunning, biting, opportunistic, and like a serpent, consuming others for oneself. Whatever life's about, it's about me and it's for me, right? And I'm going to look out for number one. That's the serpent.

It's also a problem, however, if our children are brought up with good intentions, but naive and without the necessary discernment. Oh, they're good-hearted folks, but they have no idea what they're getting into. There's also a double hazard, ignorance of the world's manner and of godly spiritual character. Nancy and I know some people whose approach to bringing the kids up is, I won't give them any spiritual background at all because I don't want to bias them. You know what that does? It gets absolutely no spiritual discernment, no understanding of the spiritual realm. So that's not exactly a good plan, is it? The biblical aim here is for realistic insight into the world. This is what the world is really like, understanding it and what the hazards are, but from a perspective of godly spiritual character.

That's the combination that Well, we aim for it here as you go out from here. And we also ought to aim for it as parents. And we ought to be encouraging that as grandparents, right, for the children for whom we have some degree of responsibility. Even in the Sunday school downstairs, this is a part of what's being done. We'll get back to that. I want to finish up the chapter here, Matthew 10, 16-23.

Jesus gives instructions that look far into the future. Instructions of these verses extend into the time of the coming seven year tribulation period. Why do I say that? All the way up to the time when Christ comes back. We know because Jesus applies his words up to the time of his second coming, when the Son of Man comes again. So these are long time application time frames that he is looking at here.

Jesus is going to speak similarly to his disciples in Matthew 24. He who survives to the end will be saved, similar kind of wording there. And we'll talk about that in more detail when we get to Matthew 24. For now, I'd like us to return to this grid and talk about that just a little bit more.

The biblical aim is for us to send believers out from here, from week to week, and for parents ultimately to be able to send their kids out when it's time for that. for kids to have a realistic insight into the world. What's the world like out there? What preparation do I need for it with the hazards that are out there? But viewing things from a godly spiritual character, not naively, not being sucked into the world, but being aware of what the world is like, but from the standpoint and the viewpoint of godly spiritual character.

We in the church, that's us, including our children, need to know some things. And that's on a need-to-know basis. And you need to know it, right? Okay. The simple biblical gospel. Do the kids know? Do you know? Do I talk about, okay? Do other teachers talk about?

What's the gospel? Christ died for your sins, was buried, and rose again. Christ the Son of God did that for you. Do you believe it? That's the gospel. Now, can we talk about more details about that? Most certainly, but that's the boiled down, that's the gospel. That's it.

Do they know it? Do I know it? Do you know it? They need to know it. We need to know it. And we need to know the difference it makes. If I believe that simple biblical gospel, what difference does that make? Does it make mommy and daddy smile? No. Vern gets all happy and clappy and sings a song? No. They need to know it makes a forever difference and they need to know it makes a difference right now and everywhere in between. Each of us here, And our kids also, once they come to be saved, need to know who each of us is in Christ.

We have been baptized into Christ, into his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. Those five things. And if you've got five fingers, you can count on them, right? Those five things. You have been identified with Christ in those five things. Very important. We need to know it. Our kids need to know it. And that's one reason, and this is not the end of it, but that's one reason it's being taught downstairs. We need to know the difference it makes. And do you know one of the differences, and it's only one of them, one of the differences it makes that you as a believer were crucified with Christ is that you died to the world.

Galatians 6.14, Colossians 2.20. That world that is a hazard out there, that world that our kids need to know about, not so that they're entrenched in it, not so that they're engulfed in it, but they need to know about. They need to know that they died to it when they died with Christ on the cross. They need to know the difference it makes. They need to know where their heavenly citizenship is.

There's a song that I heard some years ago that the words start off like this. If you think my head's in a different world, then brother, you're right. Okay. Yeah. Set your mind on things above. They need to know the difference it makes. They need to know who Christ is in each one of us because that's how life is going to get lived. When Paul said, I have been crucified with Christ. One of the huge consequences of that is you're done doing the living here. It's not your job. It's His. It's not my job to go about doing the living here.

It's Christ's. They need to know the difference that makes. One time Nancy asked a rather brave question of our kids. She said, can you tell the difference between the time I'm walking with the Lord and when I'm not? Yeah. Can they see the difference? Yeah. Do they know what that means? They should.

And the encouragement then is to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, including the gospel, including who you are in Christ, including who he is in you and the difference that makes. Lord, we thank you that as we look at this passage, we've been presented with something that looks like, yes, it was initially instructions to the disciples. Here's what you need to do when you go out. Here's the character that you're to have.

But when we ponder it, we realize, you know, we need that too. And it's a message for us as a church. It's a message for us who are in the role right now of being parents. It's even a message for us who are not parents, but grandparents, aunts and uncles, in our encouragement of the parents and of our children that we come in contact with. When we thank you for the insights here, we thank you for the understanding. that we have because of your work. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.