Hello and welcome to Wednesday’s podcast, thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Sam and I’ve recently joined the team here at STC. I first moved to Sheffield in 2016 and was a student here for 3 wonderful years. I then moved to London for while before coming back up North this September. It’s a real joy to bring you an encouragement from the Bible today, so wherever and whenever you’re listening, I pray that this passage and my words bring hope and life to your day. We’re going to be looking together at chapter 10 of Matthew’s gospel, focusing on verses 7-10. It reads:

As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.  Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts – no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.

This is the word of Lord. Thanks be to God.

REFLECTION:

So at this point in Matthew’s gospel, we’ve seen Jesus doing all sorts of Jesus-y things. He’s healing the lepers, he’s driving out demons, he’s teaching people the ways of life in all its fullness. And as I’m sure you can imagine, he’s started to develop quite the posse. People followed him around to watch and to learn.

This passage sees Jesus giving authority to the people who had been following him – his disciples. He gives to them the power to do everything that they’ve just spent all that time watching him do. Next, Jesus sends them out with a kit list that doesn’t exactly sound like you’re off on a five star spa retreat. He says forget about your Monzo card, leave your change of flip flops at home, and don’t even think about the walking stick.

But he leaves the disciples with this task, announce that the Kingdom of Heaven is near and do what he had been doing. God would provide all that they would need. And off they go.

During the summer of 2017, at the end of my first year at uni, 3 friends and I took part in something called Escape and Pray. It was a 72 hour mission trip and the whole premise is based around this passage in Matthew 10. We were to put Jesus’ instructions given to his first disciples into practice 2,000 years later. The idea was to travel to a city in Europe, with no money, no plans, nowhere to stay. Just some friends and a God who provides. We didn’t even get told where we were going, just to show up to Manchester Airport at 7am on a certain day. We then opened an envelope containing 4 tickets to Zagreb in Croatia. To help you imagine the scene, think Top Gear challenge, just more Jesus Christ and less Jeremy Clarkson.

Our mission for the trip was to connect with other believers, to pray for people and to trust that the Lord would feed us and provide places to stay. To cut a really long story short, he did.

I have so many stories of God’s faithfulness and kindness from that trip, but the biggest take away was how time and time again, how God provided.

After returning from Croatia, I remember beginning to reflect on what had been some of the best moments of my life. But, I also began to feel a tension. A tension between what had happened over the weekend and what was my everyday life. A tension between the 3 days I’d spent totally reliant on God’s provision and the other 7,000 regular days I had under my belt. I wonder if you’ve ever felt like this?

I found myself returning to this passage in Matthew 10 and asking questions like, ‘Do I need to give up on uni? Should I sell everything I have and live out of a backpack?’

In that moment I felt the Lord reminding me that his desire is for us is to trust him in the ordinary, everyday – not just in the exciting moments. He reminded me that everything we have is because of his provision. The porridge for breakfast, the car for the school run,