Sunday School: Lesson 11 - True Discipleship

Ready to go. All right, we're gonna. We are going to roll here. I know a lot of people.

roll in as time moves on, as the spirit leads them. But we got a lot of fun stuff to talk about this morning, so we're gonna jump in. if you guys have your Bibles open up to Matthew chapter 10, we're gonna be talking about discipleship this morning. And before we do, let's pray.

We got some exciting stuff to talk about. Hey, Steve, how's it going? What's your, what's your name? Yeah.

Gretel. Nice to meet you, Gretel. Got Justice, Joe. Josh.

All right, Larry. Right. All of our other friends will show up as the spirit leads. Let's go ahead and pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for this beautiful morning for us to be together, to look at your word. Thank you for the time that we had already just singing to you and singing of your truths. We ask God that you would fill us with your Spirit. We need your spirit to open up our eyes for us to really understand the things that we're looking at.

And, we thank You, Lord, that your word tells us that if anyone lacks wisdom, let them ask of God and he You are so liberal and you do not, rebuke or reproach us for asking you for wisdom. And so we ask that you do that right now as we look at some challenging, passages of scripture, and may we be encouraged and may it challenge us to grow in Christ's name, we pray. Amen. Well, last week, Dan Whittaker was our teacher.

He did a great job on the IM passages. I hope you guys enjoyed that. And so we're just gonna review real quick some of the stuff that Dan talked about last week. Jesus Christ says, I am all over the place in the New Testament, picking up upon what God says of himself in Exodus 3, remember to Moses, he says, say I am has sent me for I am who I am.

And so Jesus, when he says stuff like this before Abraham was, I am, the Jewish leadership knew exactly what he was claiming. He was claiming to be the actual I am, that is Yahweh. That's why they pick up stones to stone him. But he doesn't just say that, he says, I am the bread of life.

So he's the one that nourishes us. what human being would make these claims? Either Jesus really is God and the fountain satisfaction of our souls, or he is some maniac, right? What did Justice say in his testimony last week?

He says, schizophrenia is pride on steroids. If Jesus Christ is claiming these things and he's not really who he claims to be, then he is pride on steroids. What person would say, I am the bread of life, come to me and I will feed you. I am the light of the world, so you're gonna get direction for your life by coming to me.

I am the door of the sheep. There's only one door to get to eternal life. I am the good shepherd. This is one of my favorite ones that Dan covered last week that That Christ is the one that guides us and protects us from harm and keeps us in good pastures and water.

I am the resurrection and the life. he who believes in me though he dies, yet shall he live. And then I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the true vine.

This is one that I've been really thinking about this week cause I've been reading through Jeremiah. Jeremiah talks about this vineyard that has been overrun because Israel and Judah's rejecting God, but God's raising up this branch. That is going to come and provide the righteousness for Israel and Judah. Jesus comes along and says, I'm that vine.

I'm the one that's providing that righteousness. So again, either Jesus really is who he claims to be, he really can satisfy our souls. Thank you, sir. You're a gentleman and a scholar.

There's not many of us left. Good job. Either he really is who he claims to be, or he is an egomaniac, right? There's no really in between.

You can't just say Jesus was a good guy, good teacher. No, this is, these are the type of statements that somebody who's got some mental problems makes. these I am declarations should leave no ambiguity about who he said he was and his purpose, for coming. Have you guys ever read that passage in Jeremiah chapter 2, where Yahweh says Israel or to Judah really, I am the true fountain of life, but you've wrecked, you've rejected me and gone to broken cisterns.

those are the two errors. You've rejected the true fountain of life and you're trying to get your satisfaction from broken. Cisterns. That's not like a plural for nuns, that's like water, it's something that contains water.

In a broken cistern, the water either completely drains out or elements that are not desirable to drink come up into the cistern. And when we are trying to find our satisfaction outside of Christ, we're going to broken cisterns. But when we come to Christ, he's the one that can really provide what, forgiveness of sins, we all need to be forgiven. So why would we wanna come to a guy who can forgive us of our sins, rescue us from hell?

Why wouldn't we come, wanna come to a savior that can bring us to heaven forever? He's the only one that can do that. So great job to Dan, just leading us through this I am statement. So this morning, we're gonna be talking about discipleship, and we're gonna start by asking, what is a disciple?

And Let me just ask you guys, what, what type of terms come to mind when you hear the word disciple? Follower, excellent. Say it again. A learner, a follower.

That's great. He Discipline, yeah, discipline. So, yeah, a learner is kinda like the base definition, learner or follower. But more than just a learner, when we look at the pages of, of scripture, we say that disciples are losers, right?

He who, if you wanna find your life, you must lose your life. Disciples are deniers. We must deny ourselves and follow Him. The disciples are forsakers, forsaking our life to follow Christ, and disciples are cross bearers.

You don't have to write all this down. I'm just giving you, just an overview of what some of the passages say. we're gonna be spending quite a bit of time in Matthew to see what Matthew says. In Matthew, remember, at the end of the book, we have this great commission passage where Jesus tells his disciples to go out and to make disciples, teaching them to observe all things.

So there's two things there, make disciples. And you're gonna make disciples by baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. That seems to imply their salvation, right, their justification, when they enter into the body, but then you're gonna teach them throughout their lifetime, how to obey all of Christ's commands. So, let's, let's try to delve further in.

What is a disciple? Someone who submits to the teaching and will of a, a leader, modeling his life after them. I can email you guys these notes and post them if you want later. imagine like a kung fu movie, right?

I don't know if you guys like any of these old kung fu movies. Sometimes I get into a kick watching kung fu movies, and there's always a master, and then there's his, right, his disciple or his pad one learner, right? And when you go up to the high Buddhist hill, you gotta hike way up there, it takes a long time. you're isolated.

And really, that master can tell you anything. And it, and it may seem ridiculous, but if he wants you to put a pot on your head, you walk around with a pot on your head. If he wants you to wax on and wax off, you do that. You paint, and you don't really understand why he's telling you to do certain things.

But then all of a sudden, there becomes a point in the movie where the disciple realizes, oh, this is why I've been cleaning all these cars and painting all these fences and stuff like that. It's to help me with the battle, right? Against the enemy. And so, that's similar really to some, somewhat of the idea in the Bible.

is that we have these disciples that are gonna follow Christ. And Jesus has his own method of discipleship or training. There's this process of teaching by which Christians, in this case, Christ's first disciples grow to be more like Christ. So, the discipleship process is a process of becoming more like Christ.

We're actually gonna break this lesson up into two parts. So, this morning, we're gonna be looking at Matthew 10, and then next week, we're gonna be looking at Luke 14. We're also gonna try to next week answer the question, so if we're supposed to become more like Christ, does that mean that we can become exactly like Christ in this lifetime? Are we going to become perfected in this lifetime?

And if we're not gonna become perfect in this lifetime, why even try? We're gonna try to answer those questions next week. This week, we're gonna try to look at just what's the plan of discipleship that Jesus sets up for his initial disciples and to look at that as a model for how Christ wants to disciple us, but also how he's calling us to disciple others. Does that make sense?

So, we're gonna, we're gonna try to look at, particularly chapter 10, we're gonna get a little bit of preview here. As we study the word, we're gonna call this today how Jesus does discipleship. How does Jesus do discipleship? Does he call his disciples up to some lonely mountain with fog?

Does he have a big old Fu Manchu beard that he's always swiping around? Is he telling them to do odd weird things? Sometimes. and what is the end game here?

What's the end game for his disciples as he takes them through discipleship. So the 1st 3 points that we're gonna make this morning are really gonna be preview, and then on the 4th point, we're gonna spend a lot of time, all right? So let's, let's look at how Jesus does discipleship. The first thing that we're gonna notice is Jesus selects his first disciples.

And I'm gonna actually have you turn back to chapter 4. Let's go back to chapter 4. So this is giving us the context of how Jesus does discipleship. Oh, Matthew, yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, Matthew 4. And so you'll notice in 4:18, Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee, and this is where he selects four of his initial disciples. We've got Peter, Andrew, James, and John, all get selected at this point. And then later, we're gonna see Matthew or Levi, the tax collector in chapter 9 get selected.

We don't really hear in the book of Matthew about how the other seven disciples get selected, but we do see these particular disciples highlighted in our narrative or our movie, so to speak. So he goes out, he picks his followers, And so these are, there's several different lists in the New Testament, but here's the basic disciples, list of disciples. It can be somewhat confusing if you don't know that a lot of these guys have different names, right? Surnames, I've got kinda like the name their mama gave them, and then there's probably the name that they grew up with, and then there's some special name that Jesus gives them later.

And it can be somewhat confusing. It's almost kinda like, my son, his proper name proper is Joshua, but when he started playing baseball, there were so many Joshua on one of his teams, he, they, we started calling him Howie cause his middle name's Howard. And so when we're out in our with some of his friends, a lot of people call him Howie, and some people that aren't used to that will be like, who are you talking to? Who are you talking about?

So there's Joshua and Howie. So, same type of thing with a lot of these disciples. So you've got Simon, who later becomes Peter, right? Andrew's Peter's brother.

You've got James, but we don't want to confuse him with the other James. This is James who was born of Zebeds. His father, John is his brother. So John of Zebedee.

So the 1st 4 disciples come from two different families, right? You got brothers. Then you got Philip, he's pretty easy because everywhere in the Bible, he's just called Philip, that's nice. Bartholomew sometimes is called Nathaniel.

Then you've got Thomas, who's also sometimes called Didymus because he must have had a twin brother. So sometimes he's called the twin. Sometimes he's called Doubting Thomas, right? That's not a very nice name, but sometimes he's referred to as Doubting Thomas.

Then you've got Matthew. Say it again. He's not called Doubting, oh no, yeah, in church history, sometimes we refer to him as Doubting Thomas. Then, then Matthew and is also Levi, right?

So you've got Matthew, other places he's called Levi. Then you've got James of Alpheus, right? To distinguish him from Zebedee. Sometimes in church history, it's James the Greater and James the Lesser, right?

Which one would you want to be, James the Greater or James the Lester? I don't know, I'm not sure. Thaddeus, is sometimes referred to as Lebius, but he's also known as Judas. But you have to distinguish this Judas from the other Judas, right?

So then you've got Simon the Zealot, you in, in the NIV it's gonna say zealot, which is a translation of the word Canaan, which basically means like a nationalist or a Zionist. So he probably before he got converted, he was like a pro-Israel guy, right? He's a nationalist. And just to confuse you even more, there was probably a bad scribal error that refers to him as a Canaanite, that actually is probably just a misread on Canaanian.

And so, it's Simon the Zealot, and then you've got real simple, Judas Iscariot, right? Everybody knows he's always listed last in the list of 12. Every time he's listed, he's listed last, and he's always distinguished as Judas Iscariot. So that's our, that's our 12.

These are the ones. And when you just think through the stories of these 12, these are the, the folks that Jesus is discipling. you guys can just think of some good times and bad times. We already know some of their narrative.

We know that some of these guys are gonna do some amazing things like when Peter says, you are the son of the living God, right? And Jesus says, my Heavenly Father revealed that to you, not flesh and blood. And then Peter's denying him 3 times. You've got John, the sons of thunder, wanting to call fire down from everybody.

There's times where they're arguing about who's first, and so on and so forth. Obviously, Judas Iscariot, that whole stuff, and yet Judas is running around with the disciples. Nobody seems to even know who the one is that's going to deny Christ. When Jesus predicts that somebody will deny him and fall away.

Nobody knows it's Judas because Judas seems to fit right in as they're moving around. So that's an overview of these guys. Takes us to our second preview point, that is Jesus sets the example. Look at 4:23.

So Jesus chooses these guys, but he doesn't just immediately send them out to the wolves as he's going to. He actually spends quite a bit of time just allowing them to watch him. He goes out and does what he's going to empower them to do. So look at chapter 4, verse 23, and I want you to notice something.

In verse 23, it says, and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people. And then it flushes it out in the next two verses. So he's teaching, he's preaching, and he's healing. Now, immediately turned to 9:35, and let's notice something about this verse, 9:35 says, then Jesus went about all cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

What do you guys see that's similar here? It's almost a cut and paste, right? 4:23 to 9:35 is, is almost a cut and paste. And what this is, is this is like a bookend of this first scene of Christ's ministry.

It's like, here's a verse that's gonna tell we're starting a scene. Of Christ's, his discipleship ministry, going out and doing all these, he's gonna teach, he's gonna preach, he's gonna heal, he's gonna cast out demons. Then you get to verse 35 of chapter 9, it's kinda like, OK, we're ending the scene. Here's a summary of what we've just seen.

He he taught, he preached, he healed, and he cast out demons. So what we should expect because of two bookends like this, some literary people would call it like an ellipses, there's different terms for it. is we should expect now we're turning to a different scene, right? Does that make sense?

So Jesus, he sets the example. So let's, let's let's just quickly survey some of the things that we see in these chapters. Again, by setting up the context. these are the bookends of the opening scene of Jesus' ministry.

We see him teaching, healing, casting out demons, all of this in front of his disciples. we see him teaching. We looked at this a few weeks ago in the Sermon on the Mount. we see healings observed like, the leper, centurion servant that actually I think should be the servant of the, leader in the synagogue, but we'll, we'll leave that for another time.

it could be a centurion servant or the leader in the synagogue. Peter's mother-in-law is healed. Let's remember that. So one of Peter's family members is healed of a fever.

Jesus calms the storm, Jesus cast out demons, Jesus heals a paralytic, a woman with a flow of blood, two blind men. This is just a summary of the things that the disciples are getting to watch. And by the way, if you look back at chapter 9, at the end of that chapter, Look at verse 33. the last sentence of verse 33 that the multitudes marveled, saying it was never seen like this in Israel.

We've never, it's not like miracles. Sometimes when we read our Bibles, we just assume that miracles just happened all the time. Sometimes I'll have young people come up and ask me, Pastor Mike, how come there's all these miracles in Bible times, but we never see any miracles today. And I tell him, there weren't a lot of miracles in Bible times.

That's why it says we've never seen anything like this. It's just when Jesus and his disciples show up, this is the high point of history to demonstrate the Messiah is here. Now we see some incredible things that had never been seen before, and the people are saying this, and the disciples get a front row seat to, to Jesus basically offering the kingdom as it were to Israel. He's preaching, the kingdom of God's at hand, he's healing, demonstrating that yes, he does have this authority, and he's healing everybody.

This isn't like I, I was, When I was younger, I kinda grew up, my, first church I was involved in was somewhat charismatic, and we'd go out on the streets, preaching the gospel and once in a while, someone would stop and heal me and the type of things I'd get healed up is, I never knew this, but one of my legs was slightly shorter than the other leg. I didn't know that until the healer came up and said, your, your leg's this much shorter. And so he prayed for me and suddenly, according to him, I got healed.

My leg was just as long now.

I don't know how that happened. it wasn't that stuff. This is the stuff like dead are being raised. People who everybody knows is blind, blind from birth are suddenly seeing, paralytic people who have never walked before are suddenly walking.

These are the kinds of things that are being done, absolutely verifiable. it's where there's just no doubt, we've never seen anything like this. So Jesus sets this example. But then thirdly, he sets up the problem.

So we come now to these hinge verses. Right? We've, there's the book end of what's happened before. And then in Matthew 9:36, there's a hinge.

That sets up the problem that leads into the next section. And so let's read this together, 36 and 34. I'll read it from the screen. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So he's just done all this crazy preaching and miracles and casting out the demons. And then what motivates Christ to move into our next section of discipleship. His, his heart churned, his insights churned with compassion for the multitudes.

He's looking out at these people and he has compassion upon them. He's moved. Why? Because they're helpless and harassed.

So he sees the masses being harassed, probably by false teachers. They're also being harassed by demons, there's demon possession by various sicknesses. The people are lost, they don't know the gospel, they haven't been taught the true impact of the kingdom from the Old Testament prophets. And so he's moved with compassion for them, and he speaks of them as sheep without a shepherd.

Now, last week, Dan was talking about how that Christ is the good shepherd, so he's gonna start doing some good shepherding. But he looks at the people and he says they don't have a shepherd. A sheep without a shepherd growing up in this part of the world is bad news. I, I don't really know what that's like, right?

The only thing I can equate it to is if I just sent my son Samuel outdoors and I said, hey, why don't you just go take a walk down on Hiacock, down to McDonald's, pick up a burger for yourself and come on back. Right, he's 10 years old, we're not gonna have him walk down the heacock by himself and walk on back. He would be a sheep without a shepherd, right? He'd be vulnerable.

Somebody could just pick him off or do something harmful to him because his dad's not around. And Jesus is looking at the multitudes and he feels the same way about them. By the way, do we see our face in this crowd? When Jesus is looking out at the multitudes in his humanity, he's clearly looking at these people in history.

If we just step back and look into the eternal decrees of the Trinity, no doubt Jesus, the Father and the Spirit are looking at their own and also seeing us in this crowd, there's a compassion for those, and that's why Christ has sent and now he's gonna send, but he sets this problem up first in verse 37. He says the harvest is what? Plentiful, but the workers are few. There's lots of people that have needs, but there's not a lot of people to go help with those needs.

I'm, even though I'm the Lord, I'm Jesus Christ, I'm healing a lot of people. I'm one person. And so what does Jesus do? He now brings us into the The next step of his discipleship ministry, he sets up the disciples for their first mission.

So this is Apollo One or apostle one. Right? So he sets them up for their very first mission to go out. Up until this point, he's, he's Jesus has chosen his disciples, he set the example for the disciples, but they really haven't gone anywhere on their own yet to do anything.

And so, let's look at what Jesus does to set them up. In chapter 10, we're actually gonna look at the last verse before chapter 10, and we're not gonna look at the disciples actually going out. We're just gonna look at what Jesus does to give them their marching orders and to get them ready for what they're about to do. so what does Jesus do to set them up for apostle one or Apollo 1?

Well, in verse 38, he starts off by saying, therefore, In light of this need, this problem that I've just laid out for you, pray. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest. This is his harvest. These people are his.

And so the first thing that Jesus wants them to do is he doesn't tell them, Let's now go practice your healing. OK, I'm gonna, we're gonna go over here and we're gonna have you wax on, wax off to practice your healing ministry. And then we're gonna go over here, we're gonna have you paint fences to practice your casting out a demon's ministry. No, he says, pray.

That's the first thing in discipleship. He, he says, we're gonna pray, I want you to pray. That the Lord would raise up labors. He's not even saying who these laborers are gonna be yet.

I just want you to go pray that the Lord will raise up labors to send into his harvest. What happens? What's the answer to their prayers? They're the answer to their prayers.

They start praying, and the Lord raises up laborers to send into the harvest. And that takes us to the second thing that Jesus does to set up his disciples for their Apollo 1 mission. And that is, he gives them power. Look at 10:1.

And when he had called them, his 12 disciples to him, he gave them power. What power over unclean spirits to cast them out, to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. I think the NIV says every sickness and every disease. What person is this, who has the authority, not just to heal people, but then to say, I'm gonna give you power now to cast out demons and to go heal people.

Who does Jesus think he is? Well, he's God. This is a clear reference, a pointer to Jesus' deity. you see prophets all over the Old Testament that have amazing powers, right?

You do see Elisha, Elijah gives his mantle to Elisha, but that seems to be a transference, between God, the Spirit comes upon Elijah and then the Spirit comes upon Elisha. Here, Jesus is directly giving his power to his disciples to go out and do the same types of things that he had done. And then it lists for us, the apostles that we just talked about, And so let's go down to the next section, and that is precepts that he gives. So from verse 5 on, he kinda gives them some rules of this particular mission.

And so, let's quickly read through some of these rules. We're not gonna dive into every syllable. We're just gonna kinda get the overview here. Verse 5, do not go into the way of the Gentiles, do not enter a city of the Samaritans.

Why is he saying that? Is it because none of us should ever talk to Gentiles or Samaritans? No, this is Apollo 1, right? We're gonna see Apollo 2 and 3 and 4.

There's gonna be other missions. But for this mission, it's going to be verse 6, go to the lost sheep of the house. Of Israel. So you're gonna go out to Jewish people, but not just any Jewish people, the ones that are lost.

In other words, they have some sense of their lostness. They're the Lord, the Holy Spirit has, has brought about some level of poverty into their hearts. And so you're gonna go and, and preach and heal amongst the lost. So verse 7, and as you go preaching the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Israel would have understood this message. They were waiting for the kingdom. They're waiting for the Messiah to come and usher in this kingdom that would spread throughout the whole earth. Verse 8, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons freely, you have received, freely give.

Now, up to this point, as far as we know, have the disciples ever done any of this themselves? No, they haven't. They've seen Jesus do it. Now he's telling, just imagine you're one of the disciples, Jesus looking you in the eyeballs, saying, I want you to go heal, and you're gonna cast out demons, and you're gonna preach.

I don't know about you, but I'd start shaking in my boots a little bit. Man, I'm gonna go do this. There'll probably be some excitement, but also a little bit of fear. And then he says at the end of verse 8, freely you have received, freely you give.

I'm giving you this power freely, so don't go out and charge for this. Just think of what a person could do with this power, what money they could make, right? What money people try to make today with these alleged powers. They theoretically could go out and is it Simon, the magician that wanted to go out and, and, and get that power so he could charge for it.

he says, no, go out and do this freely. However, verse 9, provide neither gold nor silver nor copper. in your money belt, so don't take any 20s, 10s, or even 1s in your wallet, nor a bag for your journey. Don't even take a backpack, nor two tunics, nor two sandals, nor two stabs, for a worker is worthy of his food.

So you're not gonna bring any money with you, but guess what? It's appropriate for you to receive your, your per diem from the people that you're preaching to. So he's gonna talk about hospitality later. The Lord's gonna provide their needs from the people that do receive them.

And so they're gonna go out just with basically the clothes on their back. Verse 11, now whatever city or town you enter, inquire, who is worthy in it. So this would be, who are the lost sheep that have poverty of spirit and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it.

If the household is worthy or fitting, let the peace come upon you. That's the Jewish Shalom, come upon it. But if it's not worthy, let the shalomm return unto you. This would be kinda like the Jewish sense of somebody's offering you hospitality, you say Shalom.

May my peace come upon you. I'm gonna receive your hospitality. If someone's like, no, I'm not gonna give you hospitality, then you don't get really upset. You just allow the Shalom to stay with you and you look for some other place that's gonna allow you to bring peace or a shalom greeting.

to that household. Verse 14, and whoever will not receive you, nor hear your words when you depart from the house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. This was a Jewish custom. It was basically if somebody rejected you, it was a sign of rejecting them.

It was an insult, and from a prophetic standpoint, it's a sign of judgment. Peter, I think Barnabas did this at one point when they were kicked out of the city, they shook, shook off the dust of their feet. Notice the judgment aspect in verse 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. Now we're getting A real sense of the, of the importance of this mission.

That Jesus is placing such authority. And such, such power and authority on this mission, this Apollo One mission of the apostles, that if they get rejected, Judgment is waiting for those that reject them. just think about that. They go out and preach the gospel, people, some people are gonna reject them, many are gonna reject them.

Jesus says, don't worry, it's gonna be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for them in the judgment. Think about that when we preach the gospel. I don't know about you, but sometimes I get the woe is me thing when people reject me. God preach the gospel.

I was out here at UCR when we did our UCR outreach, it was a lot of fun. And somebody dared me to get up and do open air preaching, and you can't dare a pastor to do that. And then for me to be a coward, right? So, so I get up, I do some open air preaching, and people just walking by, very few people listening to me.

Once in a while somebody will stop and talk, and I could be like, woe is me, right? The thing is, that should really hit us is when we're sharing the gospel with people, we are an aroma of life to some and aroma of death to others. That's also part of the gospel ministry. And that should give us a real heavy sense of weight that this gospel that we bring out, it does bring life to some, but it encouraged judgment to others.

And so that should make, in some senses, the hair stand up on the back of her neck, and just the weight. Of, of what it is that we're tasked to do, these disciples, what they were tasked to do. So that takes us Through the, the, these precepts, at least in this initial ministry. And now Jesus begins to give them some premonitions or some advanced warnings before they go out.

And the basic idea of these advanced warnings is danger is ahead. And this really expresses Christ's love as well. What master, what discipler sends his troops off in the battle without warning them of the dangers, right? And so he wants his disciples to know what the dangers are, and we should be aware of these dangers as well.

And what we're gonna see as we look at 16 to 23, Jesus seems to rise up above the Apollo one mission and actually begin to gaze out further into the future. This is very common of Old Testament prophets, and we see even New Testament prophets will do this. They'll start talking about one particular historical circumstance, and then they'll rise up and look across the mountain peaks beyond the immediate, even into the future. We're gonna get some taste of that in this section.

So let's look at some of these advanced warnings or premonitions. Jesus says in verse 16, behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Man, he had compassion for the sheep without a shepherd. But here's now the shepherd is sending them out in the midst of wolves, people that are ready to tear them up.

So what should be their response? Therefore, be wise. That's the first response, be wise as serpents, harmless as doves. It's an amazing image.

It's not speaking of serpents as some, some great, not talking about the devil, be wise as the devil. There's this this characteristic of serpents, especially in the Middle East, of them symbolizing wisdom. So, be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves. Doves don't seem overly intimidating, do they?

And so we wanna go out and be wise with the way that we're going about our ministry. These disciples in Apollo one need to be wise, but secondly, they need to be aware or beware, but beware of men who will deliver you up to councils, scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for my sake as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. Now, were the disciples brought before governors and kings, were they scourged in this first mission that we know of?

Answer No, they weren't. They were not scourged. So this is clearly looking beyond just Apollo 1, this is looking into the book of Acts, perhaps even beyond that. And notice here at the end of verse 18, who will they be testifying before at the end of verse 18?

Gentiles or the nations. So that's another thing that tells us Jesus is now looking beyond the first mission because the first mission is just to whom? The lost sheep of Israel. So Jesus is now saying, you're gonna stand before Gentiles.

So now Jesus is clearly looking out prophetically beyond just the first mission. Verse 19, but when they deliver you up, Do not worry, so be wise, beware, don't worry, 3, about how or what you should speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak, for it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father who speaks in you. So don't worry about what you're gonna say when you're standing before kings, you're about ready to be scourged and you're supposed to give testimony before different people who don't like you.

This is not some excuse for Pastor Mike not to study on Sunday morning for Sunday school class, that I don't need to worry.

I can just come, the Holy Spirit's gonna give me the words to say. This is more of an exhortation. Don't worry about when you're standing before your accusers and your persecutors and In, in the Book of Acts when you've been arrested in the tribulation period when people are, have been arrested and brought before rulers, maybe even what's going on in China right now or Pakistan, as people are persecuted. That the Lord will give you the words to say.

But here, these are the apostles, and probably more immediately what's being spoken of is these apostles are prophets themselves. They are going to be filled with the Spirit to write scripture, but also to prophesy. And so no doubt the apostles as they stood before rulers were filled with the Spirit to give direct divine revelation. So we have to be careful how we apply this, particularly to ourselves, because the immediate context is the disciples who are eventually gonna prophesy and write scripture, right?

We aren't gonna prophesy and write scripture, but by that way of application, we can say, if I'm in situations where I'm being persecuted, I can ask the Lord, I can trust the Lord to give me the words to say, especially as I've put God's scripture in my mind, and the Holy Spirit can bring those things to mind. Does that make sense? so, it's the direct application is to the apostles. Now, it goes further and says in verse 21, now brother will deliver brother to death, father, his child, child will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death, and you will be hated.

By all for my name's sake, but he who endures the end will be saved when they persecute you in this city, flee to another, for sure they say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. We're clearly now on a prophetic type of passage. Jesus is looking across the mountain tops beyond Apollo one, and he's talking about a time When in, in the church, people who believe in Christ, when there will be parents turning their kids over to the authorities and vice versa.

he's talking about a time when they will be hated by all men and we see pockets of that in the book of Acts, do we not?

We see pockets of that in the 10 major persecutions in the early church underneath the Roman Empire. We've seen it throughout the church ages, and no doubt there will be times in our own life, but many commentators say that this looks way forward to the great terrible, terrible day of the Lord, that is the great tribulation period when you have the anti-Christ and all the stuff that's happening during that seven-year period. Now notice in verse 23, it says, when you're persecuted, flee.

So that brings us to our other command here is be ready to move.

So dangers ahead, because danger is ahead, you disciples need to be ready to move. The idea here would be don't get your roots planted too deeply because if pers this type of persecution comes, you need to be willing to pick up and move out of town. So part of what this is telling the disciples, and I, I think a good exhortation for the church and church history, is we don't necessarily just have to sit there and wait to be killed. And just, during the 2nd century, if any of you guys took our church history class, 2nd, 3rd, 4th century, you may remember that some of the, our brothers and sisters in the church, they kinda got martyr happy.

And they wanted to run out to martyrdom. In fact, origin, his, his mother had to hide his clothes so that he could not get his clothing because he wanted to run out to martyrdom. And Jesus is saying, I'm not telling you to go run in to get killed. If you're being persecuted and you can get out of dodge, do it.

Get out of dodge and go somewhere else where the gospel is being proclaimed. this is something that we should keep in mind when we're talking about missions and discipleship. it may be that the Holy Spirit wants us to send missionaries into a place where lots of people are getting killed. It may be that he wants us to be more smart, wise as serpents, harmless as doves and how we get people into those areas like sending Filipinos into Saudi Arabia rather than white people, right?

That's why we're doing all the training in the Philippines. The Philippines, they're the highest overseas worker population in the world. They get into the, into Saudi Arabia and guess what? They're taking care of the babies of these princes in Saudi Arabia.

And they've, there's been documented cases of them leading some of these Saudi Arabians to Christ because they took care of them when they're in the crib. You send me into Saudi Arabia and I go around and start preaching the gospel like Raymond Lowell in the medieval period, I'm gonna end up like Raymond Lowell. Raymond Lowell died in his 70s, but he, he was killed preaching in in the Middle East. And so, we need to be ready to flee.

So, so I think by way of application for us, at this point, we're not seeing the same persecution that we're gonna see in the Great Tribulation period. There is persecution happening, however, you're preaching the gospel, things are not happening, people are starting to threaten you with your job or this or that. Guess what? There's no shame at that point in just picking up your stakes and saying, this person's not open to the gospel.

I'm gonna start preaching where pastures are greener. Right? They're rejecting. I'm gonna get the dust off of my sandals.

I've been beating my head against this wall for a long time. I'm gonna go and start looking for people who are poor in spirit. I'm gonna start looking for the lost sheep of the Gentiles, so to speak, rather than just stay here and, and get beat up constantly by someone who clearly the spirit is not working on. Does that make sense?

That's by, by way of application. And so, so this is, these are some of the premonitions. That Christ gives us. By the way, what does it mean in verse 23 when Jesus says, you will not have gone to the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes?

You guys ever get Ask a question about that. Jesus is talking to Apollo one. Did Jesus return in a second coming before the apostles here or the disciples finished their first mission? No, so what in the world is he talking about?

Well, there's about 5 different views, which we don't have time to get into all 5 views. but part of what he's probably talking about, remember, Jesus is now lifting his eyes above the first mission and looking out into the future. We see evidences of him doing that prophesying. He's probably now talking about that generation and the great tribulation that Israel as the 144,000 go out and begin to preach, they will not have gone throughout all of Israel before Christ returns in the second coming proper.

That's the view that I lean towards. The other possibility is these first disciples will not have finished their mission in Israel. Before Christ comes and revealing Himself in Matthew 17 when he reveals his glory to, to, was it Peter, John, and James, that's coming up in Matthew 17. So there's about 5 different views that if we, if this whole study was on that, I could get into all of them.

If you have questions about that, we can talk about later. But let's talk about the next aspect of Christ setting up his disciples for their first mission. Remember he's, he's called on them to pray. They become the answer.

He gives them power, incredible power that none of you, I don't think anybody's ever experienced that power in here, have you? Has anybody here ever just kinda gone out and healed everybody you touched? OK, I haven't, but the disciples had that power. He gave them the precepts, he gave them some warnings, premonition, but then in this next section, he's, he, he tells them not to fear.

And, and remember, we talked about this a couple of weeks ago, when you're reading through a section of scripture, And emotionally, you start to react to a section of scripture, like, we've just talked about mothers and fathers handing over their kids, kids handing over their fathers. It should make you uncomfortable, right? You're like, Jesus, I don't know if I really wanna go on this mission. Do I really wanna go into a place where everybody's gonna hate me?

You're saying that all people are gonna hate me? Jesus, I didn't sign up for this. You just said, hey, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men. I didn't know I was gonna be hated by everybody.

That should be our reaction. That's the intended reaction is that we're now freaked out and afraid to go on this mission. And so then Jesus, in 33 different times in this next paragraph, he says, do not fear, do not fear. Do not fear.

And so let's look at this do not fear passage, verse 24. A disciple is not above his teacher nor a servant. Above his master. What do you mean?

It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If they called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household? In the previous chapter, they just got through telling Jesus that you've cast out demons by the power of Satan or Beelzebub or this Canaanite deity, right? That became a representation of Satan.

They've persecuted me. Jesus is basically saying, don't be afraid. I'm not telling you to go do something that I'm not willing to walk in these steps myself. In fact, I'm gonna go before you.

Right? They perse, I'm the master, they persecute me. Guess what? They're gonna persecute you.

And so you're not alone in this deal. You're not gonna be out there by yourself. Verse 26, therefore, do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.

So as you go out and preach, don't be afraid. They may be pretending like or, or in their hearts, they're making all these arguments about how wonderful their life is. But God knows their hearts and in their heart of hearts, they're God haters, they're God rejectors, or maybe there's something going on in their heart, where they want to believe, but their secrets, when you're preaching the gospel and someone's rejecting you and their face is hard against you, you have no clue what's really going down underneath the surface, but God knows.

And he's saying there's coming a day when all those secrets they're keeping in their heart are gonna be revealed.

And so you can preach the gospel in full assurance that all the stuff you have no idea about under the surface is not only known by God, but it will be caused to come to the surface, if not in this life, at the judgment. And so he says in verse 27, whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light, and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. Now remember in Matthew 13, that tactic, Jesus turns the tactic and he begins to hide things from the Jewish leadership. Here he's telling them, I'm, I'm teaching you things, I want you to go shout it.

And no doubt when he sends them out in Matthew 28, I want you to go out. I'm, I'm, I'm revealing things to you that other people don't know about, so go out and reveal it. And I think we can apply this to ourselves. This, he's talking to the apostles here, but think about it, folks, whenever you run into somebody and you just begin to share a little bit with them from the Bible and the gospel, it's their lucky day.

From a human standpoint, what are the chances that some Gentile or pagan or Jewish person out there happens to run into somebody like you who knows the true gospel? And they get to get exposed to a little bit of the light. I, I can't tell you how many people I talked to, when I begin to talk with them, they are so woefully ignorant of anything spiritual, a very basic Bible truths. And there's been this growing, and I'm, I'm, I'm praying for this to continue to grow, but it seems like the Lord is, is growing in my heart, this, this realization that I've been given all of this stuff in my brain and in my heart.

And there are people everywhere that have no clue that they've been taken captive by the devil to do as well. They have no clue how to get out of their captivity. And if I'll just open my mouth a little bit, it's their lucky day. because the devil's all over the place with his messages binding people through the music, through the media, through their friends.

It's just constant bondage. And we have the opportunity to help them escape by preaching it. Then he goes on with his next do not fear statement, verse 28, do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and, and hell. So, this is those two uses of the word fear that confuses people.

Don't fear these guys, they can't, they can't kill your body. And, they can kill your body, but they can't do anything to your soul. Rather, we should have a biblical fear. Of the God who can send people into hell, the very people that you're out preaching to who need to hear the gospel, he has the authority, just like Jesus said, is those people that reject you, they're gonna be more worthy of judgment than those who are than Sodom and Gomorrah.

That's what's at stake here, right? People reject the gospel, they're now more worthy of judgment than Sodom and Gomorrah. If you go out and preach the gospel, you don't have to fear them. The God behind you who's gonna determine their eternal well-being is the one that we should have fear and respect of.

And so we go out and we preach because of him. And then he furthers the comfort verse 29, Do not two arrows, are they not sold for a copper coin and not one of them falls to the ground, apart from your father's will? Think about, any particular bird that just falls to the ground, our Father knows every single bird on the planet simultaneously. He didn't even have to think about it.

He knows about them. Verse 30, he knows the very hairs on your head, they're all numbered. It's not hard for him. If somebody walked up to Yahweh in the eternal state and said, how many hairs in my head, he wouldn't have to be like, let me count.

he just knows that instantly. so do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. So you are so valuable disciples, looking on the future, you are so valuable to your Heavenly Father. That do you really need, I know you're freaked out, we need to, Jesus is, is, is acknowledging that they're freaked out what he just said, right?

We would all be freaked out. But let's remember the authority that you have. You are serving a God who, who knows about every sparrow. He knows the number of the hairs in your head.

As you go out and preach the gospel, he's the one that knows what's in their hearts. He's the one that's gonna determine whether they go to heaven or hell. And you don't really need to fear. I don't know about you, but that encourages me.

When I'm afraid to open up my mouth about the gospel, when I'm afraid. To acknowledge Christ publicly, that gives me, that gives me encouragement not to fear. So that takes us, to the next aspect of his discipleship ministry. So this, again, this is all following up his, remember this is his, his game plan.

This is kinda like the handbook before you go out into war. And we've talked about prayer, power, precepts, warnings, or, or divine premonitions. Don't fear, but rather stand by me, and I'll stand by you. I stand by me.

When you're not strong, right? So we're gonna stand by Christ. And we need to read these next statements. These, these statements are gonna hit us somewhat hard as well.

But we need to remember, who's Jesus talking to, who's his initial audience? The disciples, how many disciples? 12. And how many of those disciples are eventually going to completely reject him and walk away?

One. So Judas is there, but also Peter is there, right? Peter is eventually gonna deny him, but he's gonna stay. Judas is gonna deny him, reject him with a kiss, he's gonna walk away.

They're in the audience as he says these words. And. And so, so Jesus is, is, is has a dual audience. So he says in verse 32, therefore, therefore points right back up to the previous verse, do not fear you're of more value than many sparrows.

Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I will confess for my Father, who is in heaven. Think about this. We publicly acknowledge Christ. What does that mean to acknowledge Christ?

That can mean a lot of different things for the disciples in the immediate context, it means they're gonna go out and heal and they're going to preach. OK. With various gifts in the body of Christ, it can be, it can mean lots of different things. It means people, they believe in Christ and they will come publicly acknowledge their belief by baptism.

To stand before a group of people and be baptized, you're publicly acknowledging, you're associating yourself with Christ. When you come and partake of communion, you're associating yourself with Christ. When you just show up to church on a Sunday, you're associating yourself with Christ. When you go to work and somebody's telling a blasphemous joke that drags Jesus' name in the mud, you don't laugh.

You're associating yourself with Christ, right?. I, I, I'd never, when I became a public school teacher, I assumed that when I went into the public school system, that I'd now be with all these people that were very mature and moral and had the children's best interest in mind. And then I went to the teacher's lounge for the first time, and I never heard so much foul, foul language and disgusting stories and jokes and stuff like that. I was like, what profession have I gone into?

And I didn't even have to open my mouth and say the word Jesus. Just the first week of being on campus and not laughing at all the dirty jokes about students, I was a marked man. Already, because I just wasn't like everybody else laughing at all the nastiness. And so, that obviously would raise questions.

Why is this guy such a prude and not laughing at our nasty jokes? Well, eventually, they have to find out. This guy's a Christian, right? And so my, for my first year, probably 22 years of teaching, I was fairly miserable when I was at work because there weren't any Christians there yet.

And, and, and it was just really tough to be in that environment., unfortunately, I started, initially, my, my road plan was, instead of being in the teacher's lounge, I'll just go out and play basketball with the students at lunchtime. That was great for getting to know students. It didn't do a whole lot for my evangelism. But eventually I started hanging around with the teachers more.

And eventually we saw some people come to Christ, and so on. And then I had a little posse, right? So, we have a little posse that we can all hang together and stand with Jesus. but by God's grace, by God's grace, in, in that situation, I'm not saying I've always handled myself in the exact same way.

I was able to just kinda ride it out, not compromise, what I was doing and just try to be a witness. It doesn't mean I was always opening up my mouth about Christ, as in a public school system, but the Lord was able to use, use me with some opportunities there. So, so we confess, acknowledge Christ, right? And, and he will acknowledge us.

But whoever denies me before men, I will also deny them before my Father. Denial, is the idea of disowning. Whoever disowns me, I think the NIV says disown. Whoever disowns me, I will disown before my Father.

This is a very strong term. And I know for me reading it, it puts a shiver down my spine. If I deny Christ, Christ's gonna deny me before the Father. That's the, that should be our, the intended field.

And so 11 of the disciples are like, whoa, I don't want that to happen to me, right? One of the disciples eventually His heart through all of this is growing hard, and he does completely disown Christ. Peter goes out and as prophesized by Christ, denies Christ, but then repents. That gives us the hope that even if you have compromise, even if you have, as it were, you were ashamed of Christ at some point in your life, that there's still hope for a repentance.

But I think the big idea here is, is, as disciples go out. We wanna stand with him, not disown him. And you guys all know how that feels, right? Raise your hand if you've been in a situation where you felt completely disowned by a friend, like somebody just disowned you.

Yeah, I've been in that situation. I've done that, right? And so Jesus is really, he's speaking as our friend and as our savior, he's saying, stand by me, don't disown me. I'm going before you, we're gonna get persecuted together.

I'm not telling you to do anything, I'm not empowering you to do. I've given you a power. Right? So go out and stand with me.

Don't disown me. Don't love your parents so much that when they, when they're blaspheming Christ, that you laugh with them. Don't love your children so much that when your child comes out as gay and rejects Christ, that you suddenly change your belief system to adopt your doctrine to them. Don't love your children so much when they reject Christ, now you start compromising biblical values and compromising that, oh, well, maybe, maybe, maybe it's not Jesus isn't the only way, maybe there's many ways to Christ.

Don't disown what is true. own Christ. I remember before I was truly born again, I, I, I, I had many starts and stops of going to church and Sunday school. I'm sitting around a table with some friends, one of my best friends that I grew up with, and his dad began to mock the Sunday school teacher that would, would, would pick us up and just make fun of him and tell all kinds of jokes about him.

And because of the setting I was in, and I really didn't know the Lord yet, I just started laughing and laughing, and yeah, this guy really is an idiot and all that stuff. Yeah, but something in my heart felt like, this isn't right, but I was too ashamed not to laugh with the family. And, and so right there, that was showing where my heart, where my colors really were. And I remember when I truly became born again at 14 years old, I remember being on my high school campus and my whole set of friends just changed overnight, not because I disowned anybody, but a bunch of people disowned me once I started acting like a Jesus freak, right?

And, but periodically, somebody would secretly come over, one of my buddies, and he would be talking to me and we'd be talking about the gospel. But as soon as one of his friends walked up, And they, he would immediately break into F words and, and foul language. He wanted to demonstrate, I know this dude's a Jesus freak. I do not want to be associated as this guy's my buddy.

So I'm gonna associate with you. And I think that's part of what's going on here is those that have been really, if you've been truly saved, right? We'll probably have to end on this, we'll, we'll pick it up next, next week. If we've truly been born again, just think about this.

Jesus Christ is the only person in the, in the universe that can offer forgiveness of sins. And he is the one that can give us eternal life. Our greatest need is to be forgiven of sins and to go to heaven, not to hell, and to live eternal life here on earth. Why would we not want to stand with the savior like that?

If we've been truly born again and filled with the Spirit, there's no doubt gonna be times we stumble and stuff like that. We need to repent every day. But when the chips are down, born again people don't disown their savior. I think that's what Jesus is saying.

Born again people will take it on the chin for Christ. If you, if you're sitting here this morning and you find yourself really ashamed of Christ and social situations, and when the chips are down, you don't want to take it on the chin, you don't want to be associated with him, you'll laugh at jokes about Jesus, you'll laugh at jokes about God. if you find yourself more often than not being ashamed of being associated with Christians and associated with the church, you might wanna go to, you, you might wanna check your heart.

And see where things are at.

Cause blood bought Holy Spirit filled kids and young people and sheep. I think when the chips are down, they're at least going to, they're gonna stand with Christ or very quickly repent of their denials of Christ. Does that make sense? Do you think that we're stretching this any?

I don't think so. I told, I got to practice this with Jake and Josh last night. We're out having pizza and I practiced my Sunday school lesson on them. And one of the things we ended on is, is just imagine, we'll, we'll pick, let's pick on Justice here.

So let's imagine Justice has just found out that he has this deadly disease. He's gonna be dead in 30 days. Doctors told him, there's just no doubt. He's dead, 30 days, dead.

But Justice also has some special knowledge that nobody else knows about, that up on the top of Mount Baldy, there's the fountain of youth. He's the only one that knows about it. And if he can get to the top of Mount Baldy and drink to the fountain of youth, he will for sure be cured of this disease that's gonna kill him in 30 days. But just so happens in the Inland Empire, we're having one of the worst winters we've ever had ever.

There's snow like crazy. You've gotta go out and basically sell everything you have to go get snow gear and everything that you can to get up that top of that mountain. You're telling Joe, you're telling everybody, I gotta go up to the, to the top of Mount Baldy to get to the Fountain of youth. We all think you're crazy.

You're nuts, right? You've, you've descended back into your old ways, right? All of a sudden, Justice, what are you gonna do, Justice? Are you gonna, are you gonna compromise what is true and say, what, I don't want everybody to make fun of me.

I'm just gonna stay down here. Or I don't really wanna sell my iPod. I don't wanna sell all my stuff to go get snow gear. I'm gonna stay right here.

Or would you go up to the top of Mount Baldy? What would you do? I wouldn't wanna Right. You're kinda going a little bit outside of the analogy.

You're trying to over-spiritualize my story. Just sticking with the, with the fantasy for a second. I think you would say, Yeah, you would sell just like Jesus talks about the prolegrate price, right? Sell everything you have, go get that prolegrate price, because that's what's gonna bring you the greatest health and happiness.

And even if we all made fun of you, even if you had to sell everything, you would go get it because you're gonna be dead in 30 days, and that's your hope. Totally, yeah, totally. Well, Jesus is that he is the fountain of life. Jesus is the one who gives us forgiveness, who gives us eternal life.

So if we get beat up a little bit, so to speak, we get somebody hurts our feelings. In the United States, basically all we're experiencing right now is somebody will hurt your feelings, right? Somebody might say some mean things about you. somebody makes talks about you behind your back or this or that.

isn't it worth it? I think that's part of the message that Jesus has given to his disciples. If you understand who I am, Isn't it worth it? And, and, and those that are born again, they say, yes, it's worth it.

It's worth it for me to deny myself, take up my cross, take it on the chin, even if everybody hates me, I'm gonna go and follow you because you are worth it. So some of you this morning before I pray, you're living in households that are mixed. You're, you're taking it on the chin from a husband, from A wife, from children, maybe extended family, you just had Thanksgiving, we're going into Christmas. You show up and you're just kinda like weirded out.

You're not sure what you should say, what you shouldn't say, what should you laugh at? your uncle wants to show all the kids something on his phone that's inappropriate. You're like, what do I do? And Stand by me.

That's what Christ says, stand by me, work, ask, don't deny, don't disown, stand by me and the Lord's gonna empower us. makes sense. All right. So this is discipleship.

We'll have to, we'll pick up some of the applications next week. How do you apply this to the people you're discipling? How should this impact our own discipleship as we're being discipled by other people? how should this impact our, our gospel preaching ministry and so on and so forth.

But let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. What a blessing it is to us that Lord, when we look and, and we see you looking out at the crowd, And being moved with compassion, it just overwhelms our hearts as we think of you looking at our faces, looking at us and that you had compassion on us because we were helpless and hopeless, harassed. And you orchestrated to send out your disciples.

To go out and preach the gospel and then to write scripture, and then generations later because of your compassion and your, and your plan to go, to send out your disciples to make disciples, here we are today. The baton has been passed to us, and we are born again because of your compassion upon us helpless and harassed sinners. We ask God that you would, just help us to continue to pass that baton on. Help us to see your love in this passage, how that you warn us of dangers, but yet you tell us you're with us, that the hairs on our head, we are more valuable than many sparrows, and that it is your desire to confess our names before your Father, as you empower us to confess your name before the world.

Lord, we pray we're not ignorant of the fact that there are those among us in the church here at Cornerstone that may be tempted to disown you, but we pray that your spirit would move upon them and bring about in them a true heart of love for you and to understand your love for them. We pray, Father, Lord, that you'd, move in the hearts of those that would be tempted to fall in the way of Judas. And Lord, that there would be many that would fall in the way of Peter. And understand your grace and love.

Give us the strength to open up our mouths for the gospel, to share these truths have been spoken to us here in some ways, in a, in some senses in a, in a secret place here in the church, help us to shout it from the rooftops, not ashamed, and in recognizing that regardless of the responses, Lord, you're the one that has the power and your gospel has the power. We pray all this in the name of Jesus Christ, and all God's people said, Amen.