To the Jew First

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Well, we are in the last chapter of the Kingdom of Action series. We finally got into Matthew 10. We're going to be in Matthew 10 through, I think, the middle of November somewhere, right around in there. And then we're going to transition into Matthew 11, which is the Kingdom Messiah series. It's cool how Matthew does these things where Matthew basically is telling you about the ministry of Jesus and then he kind of like in a flashback of a movie, all of a sudden he kind of goes back and references John the Baptist and he kind of catches everybody else up and.

And Matthew chapter 11 is a lot about John the Baptist. So up to this point, from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five to Matthew chapter seven. And then we see in Matthew chapter eight to where we are today at the beginning of Matthew chapter 10. We see Jesus preaches his Torah. He comes down from the mountain.

He then immediately goes into action what he spoke, what that should look like in practice. And then we see kind of John the Baptist come in in Matthew chapter 11 while he's in prison. And this isn't just John's disciples or the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the Israelites. We see kind of a almost flashback in Matthew chapter 11. So as we jump in today, I want to remind you, since we've had multiple services, a little bit about what we talked about last week.

As we closed out Matthew chapter 9. Jesus looked over the crowd of people Jesus is going to and from. He's healing people. He's setting people free. He's raising people from the dead.

He's giving reverberation to the vocal cords, to men and women who didn't have it. He's given sight to those who are blind. And in all of that, there is a very stark contrast between the testimony of the religious leadership and the regular Joe Schmoes just trying to get through life. Most of us fall into the category of we're just trying to get through life. You know, we're just one foot in front of the other.

And so what Jesus tells his disciples and the crowds that are there who are around him is that the people he sees are like sheep without shepherds. They are harassed and helpless. This is the last statement by which Jesus is giving to his disciples before we see a transition. Matthew 10 starts a transition. It starts a transition where he's now going to send them out to be shepherds.

So it's interesting that at Matthew chapter nine, how he ends is the. What Brent likes to call juxtaposition. The opposites of each other. What's happening there? That the sheep didn't have a shepherd, even though there was the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, even though there was the Romans, there was the Greeks, there was the Assyrians.

Some of them are political, some of them are religious. But all the sheep in this landscape didn't have shepherds. Even with all those shepherds, if anything, what it says is that they had become apathetic. They had put burdens upon those people, they had put a yoke upon those people from what the Torah and the prophets had said versus what was what Jesus had wanted. The ones who had been trusted to be the shepherds of the sheep had become apathetic towards the needs of their sheep.

And Jesus characterized the sheep as harassed and helpless.

And some of you say, okay, I'm not a shepherd. I have no desire to be a pastor. I have no desire to be a Bible teacher. I have no desire to run a church or whatever. Every one of you are shepherds of your own home.

Even if you're not married. Guys, listen up. Even if you're not married, you're shepherds of your own home. And if you can't shepherd yourself and you can't let Jesus shepherd yourself, what makes you think you're going to be a good husband and a good father? If you can't get your own junk cleaned up, what makes you think you're going to be a good husband and a father?

You will spend all your life combating the junk that you have, as that meme shows, so that you can shoulder and protect the ones that are underneath you in your family. You don't just become a shepherd because you're a pastor. You don't just become a shepherd because you're a Bible preacher. You don't just become a shepherd. You are a shepherd of your home, and you are a shepherd of yourself.

How ironic would it be if you were a shepherd of yourself and Jesus were to call you harassed and helpless. Only one person to blame there.

And yet, using this analogy, Jesus sets up this transition for him to send out laborers into the kingdom harvest. Notice that at the end of Matthew chapter 9, it does not say that the kingdom harvest isn't ready. It doesn't say that it isn't plentiful. It says it is already ready. It is already plentiful.

There just isn't enough laborers.

Duh. We run around all the time in our own life and we say there's just not enough hours in the day to get everything done. If this is the case in our own life. Then how in the world is that going to take place in a church, let alone then when we look at what's happening in Israel, where there's hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and you have geopolitical influences, you have religious influences, you have spiritual influences, you have all kinds of things that are happening. And as we turn to Matthew chapter 10, we see that Jesus imparts the next phase of apprenticeship.

See, everybody who is in apprenticeship or discipleship, they want to go on. It's like, okay, you taught me how to do an oil change once. Let me do an oil change until they blow up the engine. You taught me how to hammer. My kids are really good at this.

Anytime I do a project, Elias wants to get a hammer and he wants to get some nails and he wants to take the scrap wood and he wants to hit it over and over again. And so what do I have to tell him? Hey, make sure you don't put your hand underneath the wood. Why? Because in an apprenticeship, I don't want my son to pierce his hand by going through the wood and through his hand.

I'm trying to not enough hours in a day. Try not to end up spending him in an ER like so. If you're apprenticing or teaching somebody something, they want to know right away and they want to execute it right away. Jesus holds them back constantly. He's holding them back, holding them back, holding them back, holding them back, holding them back, holding them back, holding them back, holding them back.

Now's your time.

We don't want to be held back. We don't want to sit and be patient. We don't want the Lord's timing. And we definitely don't want to trust another man or woman to determine when the Lord's timing is. We want to know when.

We want to know if that's the case. Anybody who's raised children, your kids would be driving long before 16. And as a guy who has a 16 year old, you don't want that.

I'm not even talking about my own daughter because my own daughter is a good driver. I'm talking about for the benefit of all of you here so that you don't die.

This is just the most practical. And so Jesus has got to be discerning in all things. Why? Because he is the Creator. And so he is using wisdom and discernment for the perfect time and the perfect place for the apprenticeship of all people.

And so here we have Jesus starts to send out the 12. There's nothing in the Bible that is by coincidence. And so rather than speculate on a leader for each one of the tribes, we need to at least point out that what we see here in the scripture is that there was 12 tribes of Israel, right? 12 tribes of Israel. There are 12 apostles, 12 students, 12 apprentices of Jesus.

Here in Matthew 10, it says Jesus called his 12 disciples to him and gave them the authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Jesus didn't start with the basics. He wasn't like, hey, why don't you join the greeting team? We struggle with that. Like, hey, can you show up and open the door?

I don't know. It's a little early. Anna didn't remind me 45 times. Jesus is like, hey, guess what? Why don't you drive out in pure spirits?

And he'll say, I think maybe we set our American Christian bar a little too low.

Then he says, these are the names of the twelve apostles. First Simon, who is called Peter. I like Peter. Peter is a little bit of a pain in the rear. He questions everything.

He's got to beat his head against the wall a couple of times. I could have been named Peter. His brother Andrew, James, the son of Zebedee, his brother John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew the tax collector. James, the son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. See, Jesus was ministering to thousands.

Anybody who would listen, anybody who was there. But what he did life with was smaller. He did Life with the 12. We talked about him building blocks. Last year, when we were going through the life of Jesus and discipleship and some of these other things, that not only did he have 12, but then we see in the Garden of Gethsemane, later on in Matthew and in the Gospels, before Jesus dies, he actually had three favorites out of those 12.

So as a guy who has five kids, you should understand that it's okay to play favorites.

Yet Jesus delegates this authority because it was his to delegate. He is the representative on this earth of Yahweh, the Father in the throne room. And so in order for him to execute the kingdom mission, which is the multiplication of the kingdom in this world, he had to get to a point where he had to realize he wasn't going to be here forever. And he had to train others who could train others.

See, a lot of times people want to get involved in church communities or in ministries or whatever, and they just want to get involved right away. It's like I have this skill or I have that skill, but they don't want to be trained. And yet every time we see Jesus interact with his disciples in a more intimate setting, he is having to basically teach them like he is their dad. Look, Jesus, who's the greatest? And he's like, oh, my gosh, Jesus is at the Last Supper, at the Passover meal, and he's literally being serious.

A lot of times he's being very. He's being very, like, kind, and he's restoring life, and there's a lot of fun and joy and things that are happening, but he's being very serious and very somber. And they're like, who's the best, Lord? Who's the best? And he's like, oh, my gosh, really?

I'm about to die. And so when we come into churches, when we come into communities, when we come into environments where we want to engage with each other, a lot of times we want to engage, but we don't want to be trained. And then we wonder why it's like, oh, well, they're keeping me down. Or, oh, they won't allow me to do this. Or, oh, they won't do it.

The Holy Spirit works in order. Jesus works in order. And if it is not in order and it is not not operated in a framework that's outlined by the Bible, then it's not God. And this is how we know as a pastor who's had to tell many, many people. For those of you who know me, for years, when I was working in international ministries, I was trying to push people to go faster and harder because I wanted to grow and we needed to bring income in and we needed to bring people in, and we needed to produce more and outreach more.

As a pastor, I find myself the whole entire time with my hand on the back of their shirt saying, you haven't done it right the first time. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Almost like a football coach that says, do the same drill over and over and over again. Do the drill over and over and over again.

Do the drill over and over again. And this is what we see with Jesus. He had them doing life with him over and over and over and over again. So that by the time he sent them out, even then he knew they were going to make mistakes. But by that point in time, they had seen enough that they weren't fearful, they weren't without training or teaching.

And the Kingdom of God was both corporate in ancient Israel, the whole conglomerate of people. And it was intimate Jesus with the Father in prayer time, and Jesus with his 12, and Jesus with the three. And while Jesus cast out demons, healed and restored many, we now see that he delegates the authority that was given to him by the Father to to these 12 to do the same thing. This wasn't a small task, and it wasn't a small authority. This was the manifestation of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

And nobody before Jesus had had the same level of authority or power to do so. We see Moses and Noah and Deborah and all these other people who've done mighty and miraculous things, but nobody else had the same authority or power as Jesus to delegate for the kingdom mission at hand. Yet all of these authorities, missions and powers come with a framework and instructions. A lot of times people want the power and authority, but they don't want to walk in the framework. There is no power or authority in Jesus Christ.

If you remove yourself from the source of the power and the framework by which the power operates.

These 12 that Jesus sent out with the following instructions. Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any towns of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as you go, proclaiming this message. The kingdom of heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.

Freely you have received, free you give.

There's some pretty big instructions in here. Don't go out into the people of the nations. Don't go out to the nations. Don't go out into the towns of the Samaritans and deal with the Samaritans. Now, let's put some ancient Near Eastern, biblical historical context into place here.

Because I've heard this verse, these verses manipulated a lot. So let's put it in the time and the place by which this is happening. So Jesus is in his ministry, which means he's somewhere right around 30 years old, right around, give or take, year or two in there. Some say his ministry was from 30 to 33. There's debate, it's irrelevant to the point, but roughly 30 years old Jesus was when he started his ministry.

He's in his ministry fairly early on at this point in time, roughly 700 years before this moment. The 10 tribes, you know, the 12. We talked about the 12aminute ago. The 10 tribes, not Benjamin and Judah, the other northern 10 tribes, had been already scattered into exile and lost. They're in Assyria, which is east.

If Jerusalem is here, it's east from Jerusalem. And in that time you have Galilee, you have Judea, you have Samaria. They're all providences, they're all towns, and they're all kind of around each other. But the 10 tribes, roughly 700 years before Jesus have already been scattered. And we hear about this all throughout the prophets.

They're not in Judea, Galilee, they're not Samaritans, and they're not in Jerusalem. I'm sure there's exceptions to the rules, so don't go and be like, oh, I'm sure there was at least one person. You're probably right. But the tribes as a whole in a corporate community had already been exiled into Assyria at this point in time. So the majority of the individuals who were living in Israel proper were Jews.

Now, what does that mean? Means technically two things. Before the first century, you have the tribe of Benjamin and you have the tribe of Judah, the House of Judah. Then in Jesus's time, where you see Jews, it is men from Judea. So it's different.

It's a different, different terminology. When we think of the House of Judah and we say, well, the Jews, when we're Talking about the 12 tribes, that would have incorporated the tribe of Benjamin and the tribe of Judah. But you also have, at this point in time, Jews being thrown around. And even to today we have Jews being thrown around. And we live in a more complex time than ever before.

Because to be a Jew could be somebody who is somebody who lives in Israel. I have citizenship of Israel. They don't have to be religious in any component. They don't have to do any of this. They just, well, I'm a Jew.

And because I'm a Jew, I lived in Israel, or I was born a Jew and I live in Brooklyn, or I was born a Jew and I live in Oklahoma City. It's more convoluted than any before. At this point in time, the Jews, the terminology, were men specifically from Judea. That's like saying men from Midwest city in our geographic area. It's not an all encompassing term.

The Samaritans were ethnically Jewish. Okay, need us to understand that they were ethnically Jewish who had intermarried with the nations after this Assyrian exile. They had intermarried. If we know anything about the Torah, God is not super happy about intermarrying through different cultures and religions and things like that. And so this had caused a mixture of the Samaritans ancestry and the religious practices.

This had evolved into something very different than what you would have seen from, from the men from Judea or the Pharisees or the Essenes there is a lot of Judaism is not the same. Everybody's like, oh, well, you know, there's all these denominations in Christianity. In the first century, there were denominations in Judaism too. Essenes, Samaritans, Pharisees, Sadducees. How we don't know history.

And then all of a sudden we wind up here today and we just make blanket statements and we're like, well, today is more fractured than ever, so Jesus must be coming back. It's like, really, really?

When I look back at, like the Tower of Babel and some of this stuff, like when I look at the earth, like, opening up and eating somebody alive, Like, I'm kind of like, I don't know. Seems pretty bad to me. Like, anybody else seen anybody get eaten alive by the earth?

Okay, that's a zero percent hand ratio. Just checking, just checking. They were a part of the Northern Kingdom. The Samaritans were not the same. They were a part of the Northern Kingdom of Israel that had settled between Galilee, where Jesus does most of his ministry, and Judea, which is where the Jews were from.

Just so we're aware geographic now, remember, the term Jews in the gospel is referencing these specific men from Judea. Because what we see is the Samaritans were also a monotheistic approach to their worship of God. A monotheistic approach. They also disagreed with the current Jews on where the temple should be built. This is still happening today.

If you watch news and you look at the news coming out of Israel, the messianic Jewish people, the people who love Israel, they're constantly saying, oh, there's red heifers in Israel, or, oh, they're almost on the Temple Mount or whatever. It is a small fraction of Jewish people who care about the red heifer or the Temple Mount. But we act like just because there's five of them on an article that somehow it's the end of the world and all the prophecy is being fulfilled. This is exactly the same as what Jesus is talking about in this time. This time is very, very, very eclectic in that nation.

The Samaritans disagreed with them on where the temple should be built. In David's time, they had the Ark up there in Shiloh too. So there's a. It's not all like this. The hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans was so bad that if they were traveling to the Galilee that they would go out of their way from Jerusalem pretty straight shot.

They would go out of their way to Jericho just to avoid Samaria.

That's how bad they hated each other. This is like when the Browns and the Bengals play each other. Why is it like that? I don't know. We both suck.

But like. But it is like you just don't talk to somebody from Cleveland. It's like, oh, we're both from Ohio. No, you're not. The Jews would go out of their way from Jerusalem to Jericho to stay out of Samaria because they hated the Samaritans so much.

The hatred was so bad that you would have thought that they were completely different families, completely different groups, origin stories. But it is speculated historically that the Samaritans had the same amount of Jewish blood as the men from Judea. So this would actually be more like you hating your brother or are you hating your sister?

Act like they're two different groups, but it's like they were all Frankies. They just hated each other.

This was a huge family rift. And Jesus knew all about the political landscape and all the fractions amongst the people. And so he instructs his apprentices to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It wasn't that the Torah was first given to the Jews and then the Torah to the Gentiles. It was the good news given to the Jews.

Let's go back up there and read that again. In Matthew, raise the sick, heal the dead. The kingdom of heaven is come near. Proclaim that that is the good news. It wasn't that, you guys, they already had the Torah.

Jesus didn't come and say, declare to them that I am here to give you the Torah. He says, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is come near. That this was first to go to those who were the keepers of the Torah. And then we would talk about everybody else. So we have to be careful as a church who loves the Torah of saying, well, he came and he said, okay, well, the Torah to the Jews and then the Torah to the Gentiles.

That's taught a lot right now. That's not what Matthew says it is. The kingdom of heaven has come near. That's the good news. They were to go and they were to proclaim.

We find Paul in his letter to the Roman churches later state this very same thing. The gospel of salvation through Jesus was proclaimed first to the Jews and then to the nations. They were the covenant people. The ones in Israel were the ones who had the covenant at Sinai. They were the ones who entrusted as the shepherds to lead the sheep.

They were the ones who had the feasts and the festivals and all of these things. And they were supposed to be the ones who were to lead them to the Jewish Messiah. Because before the scepter of control and kingship could pass from Judah into Jesus, there had to be an announcing of a new king. And that new king had his own kingdom.

Then the fulfillment of the purpose for Israel comes after. See, Israel was always told that they were to be a light to the nations. When they come in and they build the house for the Lord in the temple, that house was not so they could come in and feel really good about themselves, so that they could have table fellowship after service and that they could hear great music or whatever it was, so that they could from this point, go out and impact the nations with the testimony of the kingdom of God. Yet they did the opposite. They made it almost impossible to come and be a part of what they had.

And in this time, in the first century, it is so inclusive that they would walk on the other side of the roads from other ethnic Jews. They would walk on the other side of the road from somebody who is a Gentile, who is a Roman or a Greek or whoever. They had built up walls when the king of kings was here to come to tear them down. Be a light to the nations. Be a light to the world.

Help transform the Holy Spirit's purpose in the hearts of people. This is all evolving to where we are going to go as a kingdom. Yet this is not what was happening at that time. What good is a king who comes and proclaims his kingship, but then doesn't come and rule his kingdom? Well, I'm the head of the Frankie household, but I spend all my time at the defattas.

I'm never even at my household. I don't even talk. I don't even care. I don't provide. I don't lead.

I don't do whatever. Well, I'm the king of hff, but I only spend my time at the Lopez house. I don't care about any of your else's houses. I don't come here and I don't take care of people. I don't come here and meet with people.

I'm the king. This is exactly what we saw from all of the other kings. Israel's Kings had a 70% negative rating.

They still would have been more popular than Congress.

I'm getting banned on YouTube. Oh, well, I didn't say which side. Jeez.

I have said this many, many times over. And we see this in what Jesus is instructing his people. What good is a man or a woman who instructs other people? Yet they bear no fruit in their life.

I have watched in church communities and outside of church communities, I have watched many, many people when we're looking at the scripture, I've watched them come and say, well, I should give you financial advice. And it's like, dude, you're $50,000 in debt and you make $30,000 a year. I don't need your financial advice. I would like somebody who maybe doesn't have debt and doesn't do that. Hey, by the way, I can teach you.

I can teach you how to play guitar. Awesome. Come teach me. And then you find out that the person's never played guitar in their life.

Jesus framework for Israel is to first teach them how to deal with their house. We talked about the Day of Atonement as well. Aaron had to first atone for himself and for his house before he could go in for the nation of Israel. And the only part that the nation of Israel got to see was the scapegoat. Everything else was done in the holy of holies, away from people.

And the only way they knew whether he had actually repented and atoned and done the things is if he didn't die and they didn't have to pull him out by a rope, Jesus is giving them. You have to come to my house first. If you go to Rome today and you preach the Gospel of Jesus, the first thing Rome is going to ask, well, how come your people don't even believe in you? How come your own house doesn't even see you? If you're the Jewish Messiah and all the Torahs and the prophets testify to you, then how come you wouldn't go to them first and they wouldn't be singing your praises?

We're really good at offering counsel and advice and helping others without first bearing fruit in our own life and in our own home. How can you export things from yourself that you've never imported?

Jesus instructs his apprentice to go first to his chosen people, and then we'll talk about the nations. Surely they know that he was the one they were waiting for. Surely the Israelites would know from the book that this is Jesus, this is the Mashiach. Surely they would know. But just like we see in our modern life, there's the people who often should know.

Are the ones who reject it the easiest? The ones who know the value of the church don't come. The ones who love Jesus still turn on their screen and watch something they shouldn't. The ones who love Jesus are the ones who should love the person who dislikes them, and yet they're still the one who speaks ill of them. The one who loves Jesus isn't always the one who does what Jesus instructs us to do.

This is why the Day of Atonement for us as believers in Jesus is so huge, is because there's literally been millions and billions of people in the world and there was only one who was actually worthy to open the scroll, to sit down, to be atoned. None of us could do that.

Jesus instructs them. This is after he had said that the other shepherds were leading them astray and that the other shepherds were harassing them. He instructs them, go proclaim, the kingdom of heaven has come near. How will you they know that the kingdom of heaven has come near, that they will do the work of the kingdom. They will see the work of the kingdom.

What is that? Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive out demons. The Torah and the prophets we've seen every week as we've gone through this series have testified to the work of the kingdom of Heaven and the work of the King of Heaven. And they're seeing this in their midst. And that's why I still believe one of the most beautiful, ironic, passive aggressive moments of Jesus ministry is the first thing he does is he cleanses a leper and tells him to go to the synagogue to so that the Pharisees, the religious leaders, can testify that Mashiach is here, and they decide to remain silent.

Only light can drive out darkness. Only life can restore life, and only the power of God can cast out infirmities of the flesh so that life can be restored.

They were called to drive out chaos, not continue to carry it with them. The kingdom of Heaven's power wasn't supposed to keep you harassed and helpless. This is why Jesus is instructing them exactly what they must go do and say. Because they already had seen and heard things that were inappropriate, that were not of the kingdom of God. And so what would happen if they heard it again?

They would become hardened towards it. Right? We've got an epidemic in the United States of America. Thankfully, it's transitioning right now. But we have an epidemic where people refuse to be a part of church communities.

They refuse to preach the gospel. They refuse to do these things just because some man or woman did something stupid in a church. Again, let me ask you a question. What were you expecting? Were you expecting that the pastor was going to be perfect because you set the pastor up to fail?

Were you expecting the individuals in the church to be perfect, then you set them up for fail. You had a goal that wasn't obtainable in humanity. Only one did that. And he is instructing us, his people, of how to go out first. The kingdom of heaven's power will not keep you harassed and helpless.

It will set you free and it will raise you up.

And Jesus reminds that the righteousness of God is giving. It is to give to people. It is not to say, you know what, Gene, I will pray for you today. Go ahead and slip a 20 in the offering for me for my time. Thank you.

Well, did you know I was offered a job the other day? And they're going to pay me $135,000 a year. And so because I'm a pastor of this church, I need to go ahead and break down the amount of hours I have in a day. So when you call me and you want to go get coffee with me, then that means you're going to have to give me $80 for that amount of time so that I'm willing to come and meet with you. See, this is what the Pharisees and what the house of the Lord had become.

You were to bring a turtle dove. But rather than being able to bring a turtle dove, they would go to the court and they would bring money. And if the turtle dove was worth one shekel, they would have to pay four shekels. Cause there was a tax in there. I gotta feed my family, man.

You know, the gift of salvation is free for you to accept, but it was not free. It cost a man his life. The only man who did not deserve to die. So when we look at the gospel that's there, don't tell me it's free. It wasn't free.

He gave his life so that you could hear it and receive it for free. You don't have to. You don't have to pay money to come in this church. We don't sit here and say, pass the offering. We're gonna turn the lights up so everybody can see who's writing that check or not.

We don't publish the top five givers on a board outside. They used to do that. I know I don't look that old, but I am. They used to do that. Out the top five givers.

If you call, I am to answer and I am to impart upon you. Guess what? All of you have the same responsibility.

A lot of times our churches in our modern get uncomfortable with pastors and elders pursuing people to heal them, free them, and to help Them in their chaos. I understand it can be really, really awkward at times for somebody to lay their hands on you and pray. But what about people pursuing you to try to help you in the chaos? They see that you haven't even acknowledged that you have.

What are you going to do when a brother comes or a sister comes to you and they see the chaos in your marriage, or they see the chaos in your finances, or they see the chaos in your job and they want to help you, they want to impart some of the kingdom of heaven freedom to you and say, hey, brother, you're going to get fired if you don't go to work. You can't speak to me like that. I don't want to be here anymore. You're judging me? Yeah, I'm trying to take care of you.

What kind of a healthy relationship do you have? There's not a single elder in this church who isn't going to pick up the phone and say, dude, you are out of line. Knock it off.

And I would listen. I might fight back a little bit, but I would listen. I am stubborn and I have told all of you, but they would call and I would listen. A lot of us run. We run from that type of accountability.

Jesus is sending these apostles out into the world to change the world. It isn't so that somehow they can have some superhuman power that they can keep on going, living their life exactly the way they were before, and somehow God is going to do this for them. We are invited into participating with the Kingdom of God worship team. You can come back when you stay apathetic to your bondage. You're staying as a sheep without a shepherd.

And this is what Jesus talked about the Israelites being. This was not the kingdom of God that is at hand. This is the kingdom of God that was there. And he came first to his house. Why?

Because the purpose of his house, the purpose of his people, the purpose of Israel, was to make an impact in the world. And not only did they not make an impact in the world at that point in time, they had isolated themselves so much from the other people who were originally a part of them that they wouldn't even fellowship or talk with them. We wonder how you get random stuff like Branch Davidian and the cults and all that type of stuff that happened. You just take away everybody who disagrees with you and you put everybody in a room who agrees with you. Oh, wait.

Welcome to modern social media. They literally have an algorithm for you now so that if you dislike Charlie Kirk, you're Gonna hear about it. If you like Charlie Kirk, you're gonna hear about it. Whoever it is, the name, whatever it is, that just happens to be the hot button topic of the last month or so. And so what happens?

You don't get challenged in your beliefs. You don't get challenged. Well, what happened when the Israelites stopped challenging the Pharisees and the Sadducees? They lorded it over them. And Jesus comes and says, you are harassing and causing my sheep to be helpless.

I'm doing the opposite. I am coming to impart, to raise up and to send out. Why? So that the world can be warfared against.

But if we're afraid to warfare against our own stuff, you will never be used for the warfare of the kingdom. You say, I'm totally fine with that. Like, I don't want to be in warfare. Guess what? There's still going to come warfare.

You, you just ain't going to be ready for it. How many flesh wounds do you need to get before you wake up and realize that the Lord is trying to call you into battle and he's trying to give you the power to do it.

But we're like, got to make sure it works on my schedule. God doesn't give a rip about your schedule.

When he told the disciples to go out, he wasn't like, go out on their schedule. He said, go out, kick the dust off and move forward. It's easier than said it done. Kick the dust off and move forward. If they don't want to hear it, Jesus doesn't wait for them to come to him.

He doesn't set up shop with some large synagogue in some beautiful place. He tells them, we are going to go out to them, we're going to meet them, we're going to send them out, we're going to pursue them for our relationship, for healing, for restoration. A out shout shepherd pursues the sheep that wander in the wilderness. He doesn't lay complicit to their murder.

You could say, well, that's kind of creepy. Are you, are you gonna, are you gonna come after me? Like, are you gonna stalk me? No, but I'm gonna keep trying to tell you that I love you. Because when you get picked off by a wolf, I'm still gonna be here.

Just means it's gonna hurt a little bit more when we heal.

This is the gospel of the kingdom, that you should pursue healing, restoration, cleansing. That they may know the kingdom of God is near. Not some powerless God or some powerless word that leaves us entrapping people for Our own benefit. The only benefit you have to me is to go thrive out there.

Not gonna lose any sleep overnight and be like, oh, hey, I met this person in Walmart. They were really down and paid for their stuff. I gave him a hug. I told him I loved him. Yes, do it.

Hey, man, this person was really, really sick. I just decided I was gonna make him some chicken noodle soup. Yes. The kingdom of God, it's in the small things.

We have become so focused on pursuing the world that we've forgotten that the world sees us as powerless apprentices of Jesus when we don't operate in the power of Jesus.

My finances are really rough.

My life is really rough. You believe in that Jesus guy who, like, raised the people from the dead? Yeah, yeah, I do.

He said, heal the sick cleanse. And sometimes we're like, you know, sometimes life just gives you that forest. Frank's like, my Jesus be making lemonade.

I hate lemons, but I do like lemonade.

For the kingdom of heaven to be near in your life, in order for you to multiply that into somebody else's life, it has to first start in your own life. And it has to start first in your own home. And then it should spill out into the church communities, and then from the church, it spill out into the world world. And when the world beats you up and attacks you, you should be able to come back to that church community knowing that they would fill you up and have your back so that you can send each other back out.

One of the greatest powers that God has ever given us is our testimony. And a lot of times we forget that. The number one testimony we do is what we do with our bodies.

What you say and what you do matters.

This is a part of our testimonies.

God's plan was never to forsake the Jews, and it was also never to give the Jews a free pass. No one comes to the Father, except through the Son. This is explicit in the writing. I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the.

They know what that means. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father.

They knew exactly what this was saying and what he was saying. God's plan for the Jews was no different from God's plans for the nations. This was always a part of what God wanted to do. It was not so that we could get back to Sinai. He didn't come and spend the time so that you could come to Jesus so you could become Jewish and you could go back to Sinai.

And you, you could sit at Sinai and you could sit under the rabbis and you could do the same cycles of the prophets and the prophets and the prophets and the prophets and the prophets. Dude, they got exiled more times than anything.

That was not God's plan. God's plan from the beginning was that humanity would dwell in the cool of the garden with him. Jew and gentile, male and female. We all have to be born again.

But Jesus was going to his house first. Why? Because a lot of people come and talk to April and I say, hey, can you give us some advice on our children?

See, the Pharisees and the leadership for many, many times before, they were giving advice about how to raise kids and they weren't doing it. And not only were they not doing it, they weren't producing any fruit in what they were doing, but they were still giving counsel on how to do that. People call them and said, hey, do you know what, what we should do? I'm having problems with my 17 year old. It's like, nope, But I can give you some elders to call.

I don't have a 17 year old. I can't give you counsel on something that I haven't gone through. The Pharisees were doing that.

Jesus had to come to his house first because they should have known who the Jewish Messiah was.

And I honestly believe my opinion from the Book of Chris, I honestly believe that a bunch of them did. Because when we see Luke's writings in the Acts of the Apostle, we see that many had shifted where they were. So it just took a while for them to be able to see it or get it or feel comfortable enough in talking about it. Guess what? We see that in the modern church too.

There's people who walk through, through the doors all the time and it takes them a while to get preaching the gospel to somebody else, whether it's in their life or it's in their words.

Everything that God asks us to do starts in our own house.

But we should understand that your house was never the plan. Your house was the first step of the plan. Your life was the first step of the plan. God didn't give you a gift. Funny how over 14 books of the New Testament are written to churches.

They're like, ah, we don't need churches. Okay, I guess you don't need the Gospels then either because they're about government, church structure.

This is why you got guys being like, I have a house church today. And Paul says women shouldn't speak. So sweetie, sit down, shut up. You are divorced.

The Gifts that are given to the entire kingdom are for the edification of the body. So that means your gifts that you were given isn't so that you can become Evangelist Chris Frankie, or so that you can become the messianic rabbi of all rabbis. It's because Anna might need something that I have, and I don't necessarily know whether she needs it or not, but I have. And if Anna has something that Becky needs, well, guess what? When you can't fellowship in a body of Christ to go out and make an impact on the world for Christ, then what good are the gifts?

Hide it under a bushel. No, I'm gonna let it shine. It's really that simple. Jesus was the perfect father and he modeled the perfection by coming to his house first and saying, is I who you have been waiting for? And they said, oh, really?

Really, Zach Prescott, why couldn't we have had Tom Brady? The problem is they didn't understand that this stone mason Jesus, the Christ Yeshua Hamashiach, was the combination conquering king.

They just wanted him to be the conquering king then.

But he was the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the earth. And as we go through and respond as we go to tabernacles, as we continue on through Matthew 10, the. The scripture and the plan is evolving not because it was changing, but it was always the plan.

The timing of God had to be perfect. And I've heard it say as we get in the last days that everybody says we're in. We've been in the last days since Jesus went to heaven.

Well, this revival will come to the Jew first and then to the Gentile. Because we see in Matthew 10, that's. That's not what the scripture says. That's not what Paul is saying in his writings either. Jesus first coming was first to the Jews, to his house first.

And then those who believed in him would then go out to the nations to fulfill what the original plan was, which is that Israel would be a light to the nations. And some have done that.

Some Jews and Israelites have embraced Jesus as Messiah and they have gone out and they preached the gospel. We see in the gospel writings that the early ones all died for it, horrible deaths.

So that we could sit here in the 21st century and have a very comfortable Christianity.

You can't go into the wedding feast of the feast of tabernacles. You don't get to come to the table of the Lord unless you're covered by the blood. I don't care who you are. I don't Care if you're a Rothschild or Frankie or a Jew or a non Jew, whatever. You don't come to the feast of Jesus without Jesus.

He is the bride.

So today we're going to respond and we're going to sing.

And I want you to reflect on your heart a couple of things. One, are you a hypocrite at home in your faith in some way? The answer is probably yes for all of us in some capacity, whether it's our prayer time or whatever. It's. What can we do about that?

What can Jesus help us with? 2, are we a hypocrite to those who we see around us in our community? That could be your job. That could be this church. That could be, I don't know, your book club, your shuffleboard club, whatever.

You're in pickleball.

Because we've talked a lot over the last three years about going out into this world and making a name for Jesus and, and loving on people who have no other hope and no other anything in this world.

But if you go out into the world and you preach Jesus to somebody at Walmart and you invite them over to come watch the Bengals get murdered by 55 points and you give them a Sam Adams and they realize really, really quick that you are horrible husband, horrible wife, horrible father, you're an alcoholic, you're gluttonous, you're whatever these things are that are there, then why would they want your Jesus?

Because the Bible says Jesus set people free. He didn't invite them to become enslaved consistently to their own flesh. He was the one who was healing flesh. And now we see In Matthew chapter 10, he. He is now imparting that authority upon those apostles.

We are the descendants of the apostles for this day and age. And I don't mean by bloodline before I get emails@brentabraaicfamily.com so today, think about that before we go into Sukkot. What can you do in your life to become more like Jesus so that when you are sent out, when you are given the opportunity to speak about the Gospel of the Kingdom, that they will see that the Gospel of the Kingdom actually lives inside of you? Because that's the power of the Gospel of Kingdom. It's not that you don't murder somebody good for use.

I know a lot of heathens. They don't murder people either.

And that's the power to change the world, is the power of the gospel that the kingdom of heaven has come near. If you will stand with me and let's respond.