WATCH TODAY’S EPISODE ON YOUTUBE.
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
Mark 6:7–12 ESV
And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, “Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there. And if any place will not receive you and they will not listen to you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent.
CONSIDER
It’s a good day to go Gospelling!
And he called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, . . .
Why two by two? It seems like they could have covered twice as much ground if each had been sent to a different place? Remember, the kingdom of God is not about the efficiency of labor but the extravagance of holy love. My theory on why he sent them two by two? The Holy Spirit prefers to work through relationships over individuals.
Jesus taught on another occasion where two or three gather in his name he is there among them. He also told his disciples that people would know them as his followers by the way they loved each other. He sent them out two by two intentioning their relationships to be seedbeds—demonstration plots for the kingdom of God.
We tend to think God works primarily through individual people. I don’t think so. The Bible indicates God’s best work happens in and through relationships. Think about it this way. Nothing happens in the kingdom of God apart from the interrelationships among the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. As it is in the Trinity, so it will be in the community of God’s people. On earth as it is in heaven . . . right?
Think through how the various relationships and small communities across your own life’s landscape can become consecrated to God for his purposes in the world. Ask God to demonstrate his kingdom in and through your relationships.
. . . and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
This is a far larger miracle in and of itself than we can imagine. A mere fallen human being is capable of carrying the authority of Jesus, the one in whom the Spirit dwells beyond measure, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. Jesus’s authority can be transferred. This is astonishing. There is no higher authority than the authority of Jesus, and he entrusts it to his followers. Are you in touch with this possibility in your own life? Isn’t this the whole point of discipleship: to learn from Jesus how to live under and through his authority, which is to live in the fullness of his Spirit for the sake of blessing others?
He charged them to take nothing for their journey . . .
This kind of flies in the face of the good old boy scout motto, doesn’t it? “Be prepared.” Or what if Jesus is merely changing the nature of what it means to be prepared. What if being prepared does not mean trying to anticipate every possible scenario that could happen? What if being prepared means to live in complete trust and dependence on the presence, power, and provision of God? That sounds about right to me. It doesn’t seem reasonable or practical. While I think this is the ideal of the kingdom life, I don’t think it is the nonnegotiable requirement. Life in the kingdom of God strikes me as a risk-reward scenario. The greater the risk we are willing to take, the greater the reward. After all, after Jesus, only Peter can claim to have walked on water.
What if that’s also part of the two by two dynamic? Learning interdependence. It’s a massive challenge in the land of independent, rugged individualism.
Today’s text gives us a clear window into the unconventionality of Jesus’s teaching. It seems unreasonable. But what if our idea of reasonable is unreasonable? Could that be possible? Let’s wrestle with that.
PRAY
Lord Jesus, I want to learn trust, trust in you but also trust in other people. I want to learn how you work through relationships. I confess my tendency is to think of how you want to work through individuals. Open me up to a bigger understanding. For the glory of your name, Jesus. Amen.
JOURNAL
“Take nothing for the journey.” How do you relate to that kind of instruction from Jesus? Are you a “be uber-prepared” kind of person? How might Jesus want to change our idea of what being prepared means?
SING
Today, we will sing “Trust and Obey” (hymn 334) from our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
P.S. Did you know I wrote an entire book on the Gospel of Mark?
Yep, it came out in 2019. I called it the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. It turns out one of my longest books is on the shortest Gospel—coming in at 97 entries—(compared to sixteen entries in this series) and it’s one of my very favorites. It’s an exploration of the spirit-filled life through the life of Jesus as told by Mark’s Gospel. Before we’re done here I’ll tell you the story of how this Gospel changed my life. Anyhow, full disclosure, I reached back to this book to help with today’s entry. If you would like to get a copy, you can order it here.
John David (J. D.) Walt Jr. is the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed and the pastor of the Gillett Methodist Church in Gillett, Arkansas.
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3 Responses
A couple days ago the messages was about the seeds. Still sowing—I guess it was about 45 years ago I held my newborn daughter up over my head and offered her to God. This morning I listened to one of her sermons and thought of that morning, thanking God for keeping His promise. I am also thinking about how much I fail to do what Jesus did when He sent them out two by two. I depend on social media to express my faith and God’s Words, still it only reaches a few. Now, what can I do with another disciple, I am asking myself post this message. It is not enough to sit on a pew and go home afterwards like Mr. Sims I feel was communicating a couple mornings ago, and I agree as a lay person. I feel like the thing we need to be doing is getting on our hands and knees and asking Jesus to reveal to us what more can I do to serve you Lord. Then wait on His answers. In the meantime, I hope that if the Lord has a partner He wants me to go out two by two with that He will guide my feet and heart, just like He has fulfilled the offering of my daughter so many years ago. Lord Jesus, thank you for not only hearing our prayers, but also acting on them. You are a great and wonderful God who works behind the scenes for us to not know your work until sometimes many years afterwards. Thank you, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Jesus sent His disciples out with the freedom to be spontaneous, not to follow a plan or a program or a discipleship curriculum. That was before God the Holy Spirit had been given. (John 7:39)
How spontaneous were Christ’s disciples when He sent them out two by two? He told them “To take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts.” (Mark 6:8)
When they went, they did these things: “They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” (Mark 6:12-13) Why don’t Christians today follow their examples by going out and preaching repentance outside of a church building; by driving demons away from themselves and others; and by putting oil on sick people and at least praying a strong prayer of faith that God would heal them?
Part of the reason is that we ignore the fact that all Christians have a calling and a purpose for existing. We do that by separating believers into two nonbiblical categories — clergy and laity — ordained and un-ordained. If you examine the word “called” in the New Testament you will see that it applies to all Christ-followers, not to people who hold a special religious office.
The Bible says that preachers are “sent” but not that they are “called.” If you are born again, you are called. Listen intently and persistently to God the Holy Spirit and let Him tell you what you are called to do. Then obey Him and get going without getting caught up in “ever learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7)
Thank you Gary and Steve for expanding on what JD taught on today!! Your insight and thoughts give me more to think on.