This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look through Matthew chapter 10. We're
looking this week at the principles for going out on mission, for making a
difference with our lives, for sharing the good news that Jesus gave to us. And
yesterday we talked about the fact that you are called, you are sent, you are
authorized, you must focus in order to share the good news.

Today we start with the fourth principle that Jesus gives us, and that is you
have to connect what you say with what you do. You connect what we say with what
we do. We have to connect the social and the spiritual dimensions of missions.

Listen to what Jesus says in verses seven and eight. Verse seven he says, "As
you go, preach this message, the kingdom of heaven is near. " So we're going
with a message.

We're going with the message of the good news. And then in verse eight he says,
"Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out
demons. " We're going with a message, but we're also here, he says, going with a
commandment to love and to serve, to meet the needs of a hurting world.

Now as simple as it might seem to balance these two imperatives of sharing the
word in Jesus' name and serving the world in Jesus' name, this is actually one
of the most historically complex issues in missions. The landscape of history is
littered with those who on the one hand have so emphasized the preaching of the
good news that they've ignored the social implications of Jesus' command to love
our neighbor, and on the other hand of those who've done wonderful acts of
service while almost completely ignoring the command to share the good news. Now
the reasons why this happens, they're complex, that's why it continues to happen
throughout history.

What we say and what we do are obviously meant to work together, but we often
find ourselves only doing one of these two. There's this danger whenever we as
human beings are told to do two important things at once. It's hard for us
sometimes, we want to emphasize one over the other.

For instance, those of you that are parents, if you're the parent of one child,
you know where the emphasis of your parenting should lie, with that child. But
the moment you have a second child, you can start to fall prey to giving one
child more attention because they might seem to have more immediate needs, or
maybe speaking too honestly because you like them better. For a reason, we
struggle with emphasizing two things at once, but Jesus says you've got to
emphasize both, what you say and what you do.

What we're talking about is being holistic in reaching out. Healthy mission is
holistic, it cares for the whole person, body, soul, and spirit, their whole
family, for their whole lifetime. As Jesus sent out these first teams, they were
to care for the whole person, spiritually and physically.

We cannot do without saying, and we can't say without doing. Now, personally,
when it comes to a personal level, most of us are more comfortable with the
doing part of this than the speaking. We're okay with serving people in Jesus'
name, but not with having to say too much about it.

The truth of the matter is, even Jesus had to clearly tell people the message as
he was serving. "This is why I'm serving you. This is what I've been sent to do.

" He had to tell them the message or they would have never gotten the message of
the good news. Now, if Jesus had to tell the message, who are we to think that
somehow we're going to serve them and they'll just figure it out by the
brilliance of our spirituality or the glow that's on our face? No, you have to
do and you also have to say.

So the questions behind this for us, sir, are how could you better express to
someone that God has you serving right now the message of the good news in your
life? How could you better say the message to someone that you're serving? Or
how could you better serve someone that you're hoping will hear the message of
the good news?

You want them to hear? Maybe you haven't had an opportunity yet. How could you
start to serve them?

It takes serving and saying. They go together. There's a fifth principle Jesus
teaches us here and it comes out of what he just said about saying the message.

You have to make the message broad, personal, and urgent. When you share the
message, it has to be the right message and Jesus even tells us the right way to
share it. He says, "Preach this, the kingdom of heaven is near.

" Now, that's a very short sentence, but just think about all that it means.
It's a message about the kingdom, the kingdom, all that God is doing in human
history towards the eternity of hope that he's prepared for us. This is a
message for every person in every generation.

It's not just for this person right now. It's for all of us. So you make the
message broad.

You realize everyone needs this message. It's a message though that is not only
broad, it's also extremely personal. It's a message for everyone, but it's also
for me, for me personally.

The kingdom of heaven is where God is king, where God has leadership in my life,
in my relationships, in my circumstances. You can't talk about the kingdom of
heaven being a part of your life unless you personally make God the king of your
life. It's broad, it's personal, but it's also urgent.

It's near. Heaven is near. It's now.

God wants to be at work in your life today. He wants to be at your work in your
life today all the way into eternity. So this message, it's about everyone and
it's about you.

It's about eternity and it's about now. That's the message. It's broad and
personal and urgent, and that message has to be shared.

Jesus says when you're going to tell the good news, make sure people understand
the message. There's a sixth principle as we walk through how Jesus teaches us
to share with the world. This one has to do with us taking the message maybe to
other cultures and other places, but also it has to do with our individual
personal lives and how we share the good news.

The sixth principle is you recognize the danger of the motivations of
materialism. You make sure you don't get money and God mixed up because you
can't serve both of them. Jesus teaches us here you have freely received and you
are freely to give.

So you don't get mixed up. You have to pay for it. There's a money part of it.

You just freely give. You've received it freely, so you freely give it to
others. There were two incidents in the early church that showed clearly how
dangerous mixing in the motivation of material gain can be to the growth of the
church.

The first was Ananias and Sapphira, which saw the entire church come under
reverent fear when this couple died for seeking to exaggerate the level of their
financial sacrifice in order to gain greater spiritual status in the church. And
God said no to that and took their lives. The second was the experience of Paul
with a magician named Simon, who saw the power and the message of Christ and he
sought to buy it, to pay to learn the secrets of using that power.

And Paul promptly told him, "You can't buy this. You can't buy this. Freely you
have received, freely give.

" Jesus' command to freely give reminds us that giving to everyone equally,
regardless of their financial status, helps us to break through this false
motivation of materialism. If somehow having more money gives some special
status in the church or in what I might receive from the church or from the
ministry, materialism and not discipleship starts to become the mark of that
ministry. If on the other hand, there's no special consideration given to me
because I give more, truth is I'll leave that ministry if my motivation is
pride, I want my money to buy me some status in the ministry, but I'll stay in
the ministry if my motivation is humble service.

"Freely you have received, freely give," Jesus said. Now I think it might be
good at this point just to say a word about the health and wealth gospel, the
false teaching that Jesus will make you rich or Jesus will make you well if only
you have enough faith, which can become a motivator for people accepting Christ.
Accept Jesus.

He will make you rich. Accept Jesus. He will make you well.

Now this having enough faith is often translated into actually having enough
faith to give more to some person or some ministry. It's a materialistic
motivation and this materialistic motivation, you can see it all over the world,
it will no doubt draw a crowd. Who doesn't want more money?

What hurting person wouldn't want a guaranteed healing? But it's a
self-defeating strategy for missions in the end. It draws crowds without making
disciples and it loses even the crowds when the fallacy of the claims becomes
apparent.

The truth is we serve Jesus. Jesus who said he had no place to lay his head. We
have servant examples like the apostle Paul who stated that God had said no to
him when he asked for healing in 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

Paul reminds us in Philippians 4 that he'd learned to serve God whether he was
rich or poor. He saw that God could work through his life in both circumstances
as he trusted that God could do all things through Christ who strengthened him.
Every one of us, we should want, we should pray for the circumstances in our
lives to be the best that they can while we're on this earth.

But Paul reminds us that the mission of God is at work through our lives
regardless of the circumstances. Never forget that. No matter what the
circumstances, God's at work through your life.

As you continue through these principles that Jesus taught us about how to be on
mission, the seventh principle he taught us is you let the resources come from
the mission. Listen to what he taught in verses 9 and 10. He said to the
disciples, us as disciples today, "Do not take along any gold or silver or
copper in your belts.

Take no bag for the journey or extra tunic or sandals or a staff, for the worker
is worth his keep. " Jesus tells them not to take money or extra clothes and
then he tells them why. And that's where the phrase that you may have heard
before, "the worker is worth his keep, worth his hire," that's where it comes
from.

Materialism can't be the motivation for ministry, but the ministry does have to
be financially supported. What God's doing in this world, if people are going to
be sent to another country, it has to be supported somehow. Even evangelists
need to eat.

Jesus tells us here that the resources for the ministry need to come from that
ministry. Now, put simply in an organizational way, that means the budget of a
church should come from the tithes and offerings of that church. You don't start
by using money from outside of that ministry to solve problems.

Providing external resources too soon might feel good for the giver, it might
feel good for the receiver, but it leads to misunderstandings. It leads to false
expectations. It damages the dignity of the poor.

It hurts the ministry from the very beginning. When the money comes from an
outside source, the mission is put at great risk. Let me just give you some
quick examples of this, and this is where the principles of missions in our
lives start to come about for how you and I lead in the organizations of our
ministries.

At Saddleback Church, a first example, the local ministry of our church is
supported by the tithes and offerings of our members. We're a worldwide ministry
with resources that come at times from people from outside of the church who
might give to our vision. We always use those resources for international
missions or one-time expenses.

We don't use them for local ministry. The minute we begin to rely on an outside
source for ministry of the church, we minimize the importance of the local
members giving. And we put the ministry at risk by budgeting for resources that
might not be there next year.

For instance, if you take the money from a large outside gift and you hire two
staff members, what do you do next year when the money isn't given? The local
church should be built on local tithes and offerings. Second example, I know of
a church whose history had allowed them to gain an endowment which essentially
paid for all the staff, all the buildings, all the ministry of the church.

It killed the church because the local members had no motivation to give. So
they felt uninvolved, they felt unimportant, and eventually they left the
church. Third example, there were a number of churches during the real estate
boom in the U.

S. that bought large mall-like properties and they relied on the rental of a
portion of that property to fuel the growth of the church on the rest of the
property. That strategy worked great until the real estate market dried up.

And then what did they do? Then where could they go? And then a final example,
I'll never forget hearing an African pastor talk about the need for local
congregations to begin to look for themselves for the growth of the church
instead of relying on outside gifts to support the local ministry of the church.

Now, I don't want to be too fine or too legalistic here. There are coarse times
when a larger outside gift can help the missions ministry of a church or the
building of a new building. The problem doesn't come when one-time gifts pay for
one-time expenses.

It's when one-time gifts pay for the continuing expenses of the church. The
church, the church gives so that the church can do ministry. Now, this is going
to help some of you in your leadership, but what about personally?

What does all of this mean for you personally? First, understanding these things
helps you to become more supportive of a Jesus model in the strategy and
missions for your church. You're part of that leadership, but it also helps you
personally.

As you recognize, "I want to freely give to those because I've been freely given
to. I don't want to mix in money. I don't want to mix in false motivations.

" We'll talk about this a little bit more in the next few days. What has God
done in our lives? What is Jesus teaching us personally here?

Let's walk through this in a personal way. First, yesterday we talked about you
are called, you are sent, you are authorized, you must focus. Today, we've
talked about three things you must do personally.

You must do and you must say. You must freely give the message and then you must
sacrificially give to support the ministry. I wonder what God's talking to you
about right now.

Let's pray. Let's talk to him together. Jesus, would you motivate our hearts
towards what we need to do to do it your way in this world?

Where do we need to be called or sent to? What do I need to both be doing and
saying the message of the good news? Who do I need to freely give the message
to?

Where do I need to sacrificially support what you are doing? Jesus, speak to my
heart. Show me what to do.

Show me how to do it your way. Help me to strengthen me to faithfully follow
you. I pray this in your name.

Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to look together at the right place to start.