As you will hear in this PODCAST, I have now reached a point in my life and ministry where I am easily bemused. Bemused by a question that I get asked more and more frequently.
When I am out speaking at a camp or a conference, often times a young man or woman just starting out in the ministry, or headed for his first ministry, will with furrowed brow and pen poised at the ready ask me this singularly significant question:
What do you wish you knew then that you know now?
Meaning, if I could turn the clock back and start over completely…
What is the ONE THING that you know now that you wish you had known then?
What one lesson have you learned over your now forty-two years and counting of ministry that you wish you had learned right out of the chute, right at the beginning?
Ironically enough, it is the very lesson that Jesus sought to communicate to His men here in Matthew 10, this right at the beginning of their first missions trip.
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HAPPY LISTENING.
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In this PODCAST, we will discover together an amazing privilege that is ours, especially given tormented world in which we live.
We have been given a unique gift of God’s blessing that Jesus Himself empowers us to bestow on His behalf to others.
Just so you know, this is the kind of person I long to be.
This blessing and privilege defines a pretty amazing purpose statement for our lives.
This is HUGE!
There are so many troubled people in this tortured world of ours. In case you hadn’t noticed, this world has become a #Very.Scary.Place. There seems to be a fog of uncertainty that leaves many of us reeling from feelings of unease in our world today — on a global level, as well as on a personal one. It seems to so many as if the world spinning out of control, as if their world is spinning out of control. To the point where God’s peace is the polar-opposite of what people experience in their self-medicated souls.
Something that is as unsettlingly true in our day as it was in Jesus’ day. Believe me: Life was tough then too.
So in this passage, a very gentle Jesus, who sees people then and now as harassed, helpless, confused, fearful, insecure, fragile… Precious people whom Jesus describes as vulnerable sheep without a loving, caring shepherd.
To people just like them, He then and He now offers the blessing of His peace: the calm contentment that in a world spinning increasingly out of control, Jesus is and ever shall be very much in control.
The most amazing aspect of this is the fact that — as you are about to hear — Jesus gave us, gave YOU, the ability to confer His peace on those so desperately in need of, and craving, His peace.
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Truer words were never spoken. It is an axiom of life. An undeniable reality that is obvious on its face:
You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube.
Now what in the world does toothpaste have to do with Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 10, you ask? Everything, my friends. Everything.
For the fact of the matter is that there are some things in this world of ours which, once they are done, there’s no going back. Which is so ironically true about the passage in this PODCAST.
I suppose on the one hand, one could ask: Then why even discuss this? If indeed it is how it is… If it’s how the game is played today… If it’s how the game has been played for years… If it’s not going to change… Not by you. Not by me. Not by anyone…
Then why even discuss this?
Because on the other hand Matthew 10:8 IS in the Bible. Because Jesus did indeed say this. Because Matthew did indeed include this in his Gospel masterpiece. Because these ARE the words of Jesus. So God obviously WANTS us to discuss this.
So despite the fact that I have no illusions about changing anything, the precious truth contained in this passage is well-worth our consideration and understanding. And the fact is, WE don’t have to play this game the way it’s always been played.
We can play by a whole different set of rules. Rules of Jesus’ own making.
As He sent out His disciples, Jesus clearly and unambiguously told His men six words that are paradigm-shattering in their impact. So let’s talk about these six words: What they meant to His followers then. More to the point, what they mean for us, His followers, today.
Or at least what it ought to mean to us today.
And as we do so, please permit me to speak in this podcast with a distinct tone of wistfulness in my voice and body language as we contemplate together what might have been… What might have been, if only our evangelical world had simply taken these words of Jesus seriously and applied in our churches consistently.
Oh, what might have been…
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God bless you as you listen.
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The day before yesterday, I read a recently released report out of University of Missouri on the subject of Facebook Depression.
Well, as you will hear in this PODCAST, I really didn’t need to read a report about that. I know all-too-well what happens in my own rather sizable soul when I scan my FB newsfeed.
Sometimes I just can’t help but to feel so deeply and compassionately and sadly for many of the challenges so many of my friends are going through, especially as they relate to their issues of health.
I, like so many of you, just want to wave a magical wand and fix everything. But I can’t. Of course, as the cliché goes, I do know Someone (capital “S”) who Can.Fix.Everything.
But what happens when He doesn’t?
Perhaps amplifying my FB depression, this was the week for “I don’t know if I believe in God anymore” messages. Messages sent to me by a few of my friends, unsolicited on my part, each message unrelated to the others, in which their faith is floundering, seriously so. This precisely because they have things broken in lives, significantly so. Yet despite their cries and pleas to the Almighty Who — as that name for God so powerfully suggests — has the power to fix it all. But He didn’t. He doesn’t.
Now what?
What does a person do when, in their moment of greatest need, it appears that God is either…
1. Silent/indifferent/deaf to their pleas, or worse…
2. Appears to be powerless to fix it all?
And so, in the lives of some of my friends, faced with a seemingly silent/indifferent and/or powerless God, their faith in God is in a free-fall.
I say all of that so that you know that I take this podcast’s passage in Matthew 10 Ever.So.Seriously. Tonight’s discussion hits me Ever.So.Personally. And so I will endeavor to bring to this discussion Ever.So.Compassionately the understanding of what it’s like to have one’s faith collapse.
Because it’s simply a fact that, despite the title of the runaway bestseller that just celebrated its 30th anniversary with a rerelease of a 30th Anniversary Edition — the book entitled He Is There and He Is Not Silent — for many of my friends, just when they needed Him the most, from all outward appearances God was NOT there and He was deafeningly silent.
Why so silent?
It all comes down to what you will hear in this podcast.
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We have come in this PODCAST to a monumentally significant section of Scripture.
And yet ironically one of the most ignored.
As we will learn over the next several weeks, here in Mark 6, and its much more complete parallel passage in Matthew 10, we read of something that was for Jesus enormously emotional, and for us incredibly instructional.
Emotional because of its context (Jesus’ compassion for people will shine ever so brightly against dark backdrop of His own rejection); instructional because of its content (that includes wonderfully practical principles we can readily apply).
There is no way for me to overestimate the value of the insights that we will discover together here as we sort of eavesdrop on Jesus as He prepares His men for ministry.
Just to give you a sneak peak of just some of the things that we will learn together as we dissect and digest this that we could call The Master’s Message to His Men, we will discover:
How Jesus wants His ministers — both then and now — to conduct their ministries;
How Jesus wants His present pastors to pastor;
What the template for any ministry that Jesus develops here in Matthew 10 actually looks like;
Where the lines of the ministry blueprint are drawn;
Jesus’ purpose statement for all future ministries;
Jesus’ own philosophy of ministry, and how it translates into our own ministry contexts today.
You could say that Jesus wrote the ministry manual that He intended each of us who dare to minister in His name to follow, and that Matthew 10 is that manual. A chapter of epic importance that was completely overlooked, and never-once-considered throughout my four years of Bible college, three years of seminary, and five years completing a doctoral program.
#Never.Mentioned.Once.
I cannot help but to wonder how different the church landscape would look today if we actually taught future pastors what Jesus taught His men. Jesus planted here in Matthew 10 the seeds of ministry principles that will come to full bloom in rest of New Testament. In short, how we view the ministry and discharge our own ministries begins right here.
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As you will hear in this PODCAST, on the night before He went to the cross, Jesus made a series of remarkable statements to His disciples, in the Upper Room, during their final Passover Seder together.
John 13-17, those 5 chapters, are often referred to as Upper Room Discourse. They contain rich and rewarding teaching that we’ll dissect and digest in, oh… 3 years or so when we get there. 😉
There is, however, in that wide swath of Scriptural truth one statement that I want to highlight here, that really sets the stage for this discussion.
In John 14, Jesus said this to His disciple Philip, in front of the other 10 (Judas having left to betray Jesus):
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! (vs. 9)
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!
When we began this study of Jesus in HD, we said then, and I remind you frequently, that we are on a journey of discovery. Over two years ago now, we embarked together on an ongoing quest to discover exactly who Jesus is.
In this statement in John 14, Jesus assured us that as we discover together who Jesus is, we are equalling discovering who God is. And this discovery has been nothing short of EXCITING!!!
Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!
What we learn about Jesus, we learn about God.
Jesus’ heart is God’s heart.
What Jesus is like, God is like.
What Jesus thinks is what God thinks.
What would Jesus do is what God would do.
And Oh.What.Pleasant.Surprises we have discovered along the way. Soul-enriching, spirit-reviving surprises, that we have uncovered together.
Surprises about the heart of Jesus; surprises about the heart of God.
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THANK YOU for listening! God bless you as you listen.
Well, I’ve got good news for you. Great news, at least as far as Jesus and His disciples were concerned. Just in case you were worried about this.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, Jesus finally got a break in the action.
Finally, mercifully, after His enormously long and draining and tiring day — in which He taught a series of seven parables, sailed to the other side of the sea, stilled a raging storm, sent two thousand or more demons to flight, healed a bleeding woman, raised a dead girl, all of which we have discussed in minute detail over the past (if you can believe it) 4 months — this one singularly momentous day has now finally come to an end.
Then, after an indefinite period of time, Jesus and His disciples once again took to the road.
No sooner did Jesus get out the door, He was met by two blind men, begging Him to heal them.
It is most intriguing to me that of the three Gospel-writers — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — who gave us the record of Jesus’ so-called longest day, it is only Matthew who recorded this encounter with the two blind men.
I have got to ask the reason why. Why did Matthew, and only Matthew include this story? Especially given the fact that we have seen Jesus heal the blind before. This was old news.
Or was it?
Trust me when I suggest that after hearing about this singularly significant story, you may never view God’s love for you the same way again.
Yes, THIS story is THAT significant.
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OK. So I’ve got to tell you that I find this entire series of events that we will be discussing in this PODCAST…
All of which I will remind you took place in less than 36 hours…
This entire series of events that took place in just one day in the life of Jesus… I find to be remarkably REFRESHING, while at the same time to followers of Jesus’ faith utterly unsettling…
Absolutely REVOLUTIONARY to me, while at the same time to the leading rabbis of Jesus’ day disgustingly revolting…
Undeniably IRRESISTIBLE to me, while at the same time to the Torah-teachers of Jesus’ day scorchingly scandalous.
So unsettling, revolting, and scandalous that they hated Him for it. Yet so refreshing, revolutionary, and irresistible that we love Him for it!
It’s been quite a ride, really, this journey that we’re on together. Two years ago, we began our ongoing study of Jesus in High Definition. The stated purpose of which is to rediscover afresh who Jesus really is, and what Jesus is really like.
Much to my surprise and our delight, the biblical picture of Jesus that is continuously emerging EVERY SINGLE WEEK is that of a GENTLE Jesus.
A gentle Jesus who did some of the most delightfully surprising things.
A gentle Jesus who said some of the most surprisingly delightful things.
A gentle Jesus who is every sense of the word irresistible.
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God bless you as you listen.
And THANK YOU, from my heart to yours, for making this journey with me.
She was a footnote in this chapter of the Jesus Story. But she was NEVER a footnote to Jesus.
And neither are you, as you will be reminded in this poignant PODCAST.
If I had to choose one word to describe this woman — and let me assure you, there are many to choose from, such as desperate, fearful, impoverished, unclean, shunned, rejected, lonely, isolated, alone, damaged — If I had to choose one word to describe this woman, the one word I would choose is invisible.
She was indeed invisible. Totally and completely invisible.
She was invisible to her family, her former friends, her neighbors, her faith community… No one gave a thought to, or cared one whit about, this poor precious woman.
Except for Jesus.
If you have ever been tempted to think that Jesus is mean, harsh, angry, impossible to please, time to meet this woman — who will never look at Jesus the same way again.
And neither will you.
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Dewey Bertolini 