Matt 9:35-38 A Message of Truth & Hope********************************* You can listen to this message on YouTube Jesus Sends Forth The Church ********************************* Jesus heart went out to the people He encountered. Without the truth of God their lives and minds were filled with all sorts of false ideas that gave them little hope and little purpose in their lives… mostly just burdens and fears. Jesus responded emotionally. He wants people to hear the truth, He wants people to have hope, and He wants His disciples to continue His ministry after He is gone and feel about it the way He did. This introduction to Jesus sending forth of His followers to carry on His work tells us about the heart of our Lord plus it contains a practical instruction for our prayer life so we might have that same emotional engagement … Jesus tells us part of ourprayers to the Father should concern the continuation of Jesus ministry through the church, with an emphasis on those who are specifically sent into the field to proclaim the truth.Matt 10:1-7 The Commission And The AuthorityThere are three elements to Jesus’ command to “go forth”: Grants them authority – not a blank check so they can do whatever they want however they want… they cannot draw upon the authority He has given apart from faith and prayer – Matt 17:20, Mark 9:29 Gives them some limitations: go only to Israel conforms to God’s general pattern Rom 1:16 – an expression of God’s unfailing love and commitment to Israel even to the very end when Christ returns Romans 11:26-28 / Zechariah 8:23 the disciples were from a Jewish background – they were ill equipped to deal with the sophisticated and cynical people of the Greek and Roman world… it would take a person like Paul to go toe to toe with the philosophies of the Greeks Tells them what to say: The Kingdom of God [KOG] is near – the word near can refer to either time or proximity and is used both ways interchangeably in NT… they were near Jerusalem, or the time to leave was near… Time – the idea of time is problematic for us today because the KOG clearly has not come. Trying to reconcile the time idea with reality leads some to say that the KOG is a spiritual event that takes place in the hearts of people who accept the H.S. Thus the KOG began in 31 AD when the spirit was poured out. This also leads to the idea that the KOG is the church. Proximity – the KOG is close by in the person of Jesus who is the king of the kingdom… He is also the embodiment of everything the KOG stands for. Note: subsequent scriptures show us that Jesus will leave and later return to bring the rule of God / Kingdom of God to earth at a future time. That is why we (UCG) proclaim the KOG as something coming and not yet here (Jesus makes this understanding very clear in several of His KOG parables) Note: the KOG is referred to as a future event in Acts and the Epistles by the leaders of the church.What Did The Disciples Think The KOG Meant?Acts 1:3-6 – right up until the moment He leaves them the disciples were still thinking of the nearness of the KOG in terms of time.Also, at the time the disciples received these first instructions to go forth and preach the KOG they still considered the Messiah and His kingdom to be a Jewish thing (restore the kingdom to Israel)… they did not know that the Messiah was a universal savior and a universal ruler.Later on they got a much more developed view of what the KOG was all about. For now they had only the most basic understanding of what the KOG meant. Their purpose at that moment was to proclaim the presence of the king among the people. Perhaps it was the healing of sicknesses and driving away of evil spirits would teach the people about the KOG in ways the disciples were no yet prepared to do… providing an objective demonstration of the power of the king and His kingdom and its spirit of mercy and compassion.12 Are SelectedChrist had quite a number of followers but here He selects 12 from among them an