Jesus takes a bold step.

Matthew 10:1-5a

 There are all kinds of authority figures in our lives: parents, teachers, police, judges and a wide variety of government officials at scary places like the DMV and the IRS.

 These people exercise control over us or some aspect of our lives because they have authority. They have the legal or moral power to do what they do whether we like it or not. The little people who used to come to you to get their diapers changed will one day have the authority to put you in a nursing home.

 Authority comes and goes.  Some work can’t be done with out it.

Matthew 10:1-4. 

  1 Jesus called his twelve disciples together and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew, the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Patriot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus. These twelve Jesus sent out . . .

  Let’s imagine that this church starts to grow. We start a singles group, divorce recovery and we start a late evening service for snowmobilers. One day the Session realizes that we need an associate pastor.

 An Associate Pastor Nominating Committee is formed and they begin to look for the best candidate possible. Or do they? What if they find a young woman who’s a better preacher than me, would that be a problem? What if their candidate is smarter, knows the Bible better, relates better to people of all ages and likes pie even more than I do. Would that be a problem?

 Sometimes it is. Sometimes a person’s ego gets in the way. Sometime the boss feels threatened if someone on the staff is more competent in certain areas that she is. But all that does is hurt the whole system. If the person at the top can’t tolerate exceptional people, the whole structure is going to falter.

 Any good consultant will tell you to get the best people you can find and hopefully they’ll have more talent and brains than the boss. 

 Now we come to Jesus who has just prayed that God would send more laborers into the harvest. He’s seen the harvest and the people are like sheep without a shepherd. They’re endangered species and he needs help.

  So what does Jesus do? He takes a bold step. He recruits some laborers. There were about 700,000 Jews in Palestine to choose from. We have to assume that Jesus would be smart enough to go after the best people possible:

1. Sadducees: priestly aristocracy of the Temple. They were drawn from those who held high priestly offices and from influential Jerusalem families. This sect controlled the Temple and its considerable revenues.

2. Pharisees: more influential among the people than Sadducees. They were dominant in the synagogue, which in many ways was more important than the Temple, especially in daily and weekly instruction and worship.

3. Zealots: Pharisaic in their views, with the notable exception that they advocated and practiced armed resistance against the Roman occupation.

4. Essenes: occupied the monastic community situated on the shores of the Dead Sea. This community produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. Theirs was a strict religious communism requiring each new member to turn over any wealth he had to the community.

5. Most Jews of this period belonged to none of these four sects; they were known as “the People of the Land,” the common people, or peasants. Most people lacked the inclination or the leisure to join the ranks of the Pharisees. The Pharisees had nothing but contempt for these folk because of their casual attitude toward observance of the Law.[1]

A modern consultant would probably recommend a cross section. Build a team: some with revenues, some with influence, some with aggressive tendencies and some with a strict religious code. Avoid the peasants. There would be no room for anyone with a casual attitude about anything.

Instead Jesus picks four fishermen, one tax collector, one Zealot and six others that are so common they have nothing to distinguish themselves with at all. You have to ask, were these choices bold or bazaar?

Or was Jesus making the same mistake as insecure, ego dominated managers who can’t bring themselves to hire people that may be better than they are.

Of course, that would be impossible. Jesus was the consummate laborer. Not one of the 800,000 would have come close to his capabilities. So what does he have in mind? How will his choices prove anything but futile? 

 There are a couple of things to note. First, Jesus was relying on God to answer prayer. He wasn’t expecting these guys to be born laborers. He knew who they were and what they were and he said, Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest (Mathew 109:38).

 In essence Jesus was taking a bold step to have an answer for the request he’d just asked them to pray for. Latter Paul was thinking about the creation of the world, but the principle also applies here. He said, God calls into being that which does not exist (Romans 4:17).

Here Jesus is calling 12 men to be laborers who are at that moment not laborers. He was trusting God to call them into being laborers.

Jesus did something else to level the playing field for these twelve common men who were being called to help Jesus accomplish his mission. There are some big missions like:

· Amazon.com - To be the most customer-centric company in the world, where people can find and discover anything they want to buy online.

· Ben and Jerry’s - to improve the quality of life locally, nationally and internationally and promote business practices that respect the Earth and the environment.

· Walt Disney - to bring happiness to millions.

But Jesus was building a team whose mission was infinitely greater in every conceivable way. His challenge was to turn ordinary people into – well people who were very much like him.

One of the things Jesus was doing was healing every disease and every affliction (9:36).  What did the disciples know about every disease and affliction? Probably not much, if anything, and they certainly knew less about healing.

Jesus took the bold step of giving them authority to heal every disease and every affliction (10:1) and to cast out demons. He didn’t give them a lesser version of authority than his own. In jurisdictions where deputies don’t have the same authority as the Sheriff, judges occasionally throw out what they’ve done. Jesus doesn’t hold out on us.  

Calling disciples was a multi-faceted bold step. The pool from which Jesus called his disciples could in no way hope to yield any individuals as talented as Jesus. He was initiating the answer to his own prayer request. And he gave them authority equal to his own.

But for Jesus to add recognizable disciples to his mission was itself the boldest of step of all. Up until that point the opposition to Jesus had been minimal, mostly grumbling and complaining. But after this it turned dangerous and the Pharisees soon conspired against him, how to destroy him (Matthew 12:14).

One blogger made a good point – tongue in cheek _ about what to do to start a cult. He said: If you travel from place to place, giving speeches about what people should think, and why they should give you money, then you aren’t a cult leader. You may eventually become a cult leader. But not until you start making them come to you.[2]

The religious leaders could tolerate Jesus running around the country spouting off and doing good deeds, but not when people started to join him. And what really got their ire up was that he sent them out to do the same things he was doing. 
  What does this mean for us? It means:

1. The harvest is still abundant

2. The laborers are still few

3. Jesus wants us to pray that God will send more

4. Jesus calls us to be his disciples

5. To answer the prayer for laborers, Jesus sends us.

6. And he will give us what we need to do the job.

So what do we need to do the job?

We need a lot of help but the authority to heal is probably not the top of the list. It would probably only make people more suspicious.

Here’s some of the things we need?

1. A John 3:16 love for people.

2. An understanding of their need for salvation and the greatness of the gospel.

3. The same humility Jesus had.

4. Ability to speak to the common people.

5. Willingness to reach out, availability to make new friends.

Let’s continue to pray everyday for God to send out laborers and let’s be ready to be the answer to our prayers. It’s like going up a high roller coaster at an agonizingly slow pace, one notch of at a time.  But once you make the plunge every inch of the ride is a thrill.

Youth Message

To Boldly Go

  There is a monstrous force in the universe can keep us from becoming what God created us to be. It can hold us back and ruin our lives. Do you know what it is? It’s fear.

Some fear is good. Fear of fire and stuff like that but some fear is bad. Like the fear of trying something new or not trying something because you may not be very good at it.

Did you ever watch Star Trek? Part of their mission was to explore strange new worlds
, to seek out new life and new civilizations and to
 boldly go where no man has gone before.

Jesus wants you to be bold. There are two verses that help me when I’m afraid to be more bold. Isaiah 41:10 and Philippians 4:13.

So when you’re teacher asks for a volunteer, be the first one with your hand up. If you have a chance to learn to snow ski or water ski or rock climb, jump at the chance. If you have to read a poem in front of the class, stand up tall and straight and read as loud as you can. If you have a chance to tell someone about Jesus, just the person what you know and say it with a smile.

Scaredy cats are miserable people. Be a bold bare.