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Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.

[8] These were his instructions: "Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. [9] Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. [10] Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. [11] And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them."

[12] They went out and preached that people should repent. [13] They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

I’m sure we’ve all seen nature films of baby birds being fed in the nest by their parents. Sometimes, the babies get really big and it gets pretty crowded in there before they leave the nest. I’ve seen pictures of the babies standing on the side of the nest, and beating their wings, sort of trying them out, before they actually take off. If they don’t leave on their own, eventually the parent bird will force them out of the nest, and they have to learn to fly before they hit the ground. I think there are some parallels between baby birds getting out of the nest and what Jesus did with His disciples, and what He desires to do with us.

Mark 6:7, “Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.” Up to this point, it has just been Jesus who was reaching out to people in His preaching and healing ministries, and the disciples were just sort of watching from the sidelines. Now He says, OK, it’s your turn. Get out there. Get out of the nest. Matthew and Luke both indicate His instructions to them included preaching the kingdom of God, as He had been doing. He is no longer going to be the only one doing these things. He is intentionally multiplying His efforts by twelve (or six pairs of men.) As every small business owner can tell you, it is a huge step to move from just you and your spouse, to adding your first employee. The next ten or twenty employees are not as big a step as that first one other than yourself. So for Jesus, this represents a huge step forward in His ministry. It’s a turning point that will change the character of it forever.

There is an enormous difference between watching mama bird come sailing in with a worm and going out to find your own worm. It’s the difference between sitting in the stands and playing the game. And that’s the difference the disciples now got to experience. It was one thing to stand amazed at Jesus as He healed people, or to be impressed with how He taught with authority. But now it was their turn. Now they had to get out there and feel the weight of responsibility, the possibility of defeat or failure. What if people didn’t respond in faith? What if the demons wouldn’t obey them?

But along with that sense of responsibility and fear of failure also comes great excitement, and the rush of adrenalin as we step into something new, as we begin to give instead of just get spiritually. I remember the first time I did this. I had become a Christian in my junior year of high school, was discipled and taught well in my youth group, went to college, and when I came home that first summer, I thought, “You know, I’ve been given a lot. I’ve received a lot from other people so far in my Christian life; maybe it’s time I gave something back.” So I started a Bible study for other college students in our church. The next school year, I was invited to work in the junior high ministry of a church near my college, and even though I was scared to death, I did it. I felt like I was stepping off the edge of the world, but it was exhilarating! I was out there where only God could hold me up, and He did!

Do you know this experience? Have you heard Jesus calling you to get out of the nest? Some Christians spend their whole lives eating spiritually: they go to church where Pastor Bird brings them pre-digested food; they go to one, or two, or even three Bible studies a week; they are in a small group; they read their Bibles and maybe even are being mentored by an older Christian. But they are never putting all that spiritual fuel to work. They are never giving out. They are like the Dead Sea which receives plenty of fresh water from the Jordan River, but has no outlet, so it turns stagnant, and everything in it dies. How about you? You know, the church really should defy the 80/20 rule which says that 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the people. In the church, it should be the 100/100 rule, where all of the work is done by 100% of the people. Every week in the bulletin there are pleas for volunteers, but that wouldn’t be the case if everyone in the church was doing his or her job. This call from Jesus to the disciples to get out of the nest was not just for them—it’s for you, too. Where are you serving? Where are you giving? Where are you involved in the work of the kingdom? There are millions of different ways to do it, and one of them is just right for you at this point in your life.

In our country, most evangelical churches have simply abdicated their responsibility to their community. They have gathered behind the four walls of the fortress, gotten into their holy huddle, and sang and praised and fellowshipped and been trained, but little or none of that ever gets outside. They are like an oil refinery that uses all the oil it produces to keep its own machinery running.

It would be too strong to say that we are completely like that, but it’s not far from the truth. If Jesus were an optometrist, He would say that we here at FEC are far-sighted. We can see the ends of the earth quite clearly, and send lots of people and money and prayers over there. But it’s harder for us to see the crying needs of people right here in our own town. There is no question in my mind but that Jesus is sending us as a congregation out into our community, much as He sent these disciples out into Galilee.

When a baby bird first leaves the nest, it doesn’t gather up as many of the sticks and leaves and feathers from the nest as it can, and try to take them with it. It knows it has to travel light. So do we, if we are to get out of the nest and serve God.

Mark 6:8, “These were his instructions: ‘Take nothing for the journey except a staff--no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. [9] Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.’” The point of this instruction is to force them to depend on God. You don’t get to take everything with you that you might conceivably think you will need for the entire trip. You have to depend on God to provide you with what you need as you go. Now that’s scary! Most of us want to pack it along! What if we need this? What if we need that? The answer is that if you need it, God will provide it. Trust Him. The disciples needed to learn that God was dependable, and these instructions to travel light helped them experience that. If we never get out of the nest, we will never experience just how dependable God is.

The problem with too much baggage is that it is all too easy for a church, especially, to get bogged down with the ecclesiastical equivalent of “bread, bag, money, extra tunic.” Buildings, for example, are often necessary to do ministry, but they can become like really heavy baggage if we are not careful. How many vans do we need? How many place settings of flatware, how many chairs, etc.? Baggage is heavy, and if we are too consumed with caring for our “stuff”, we can sometimes miss opportunities to serve the people around us because it might be hard on the property, or use up too much of our precious resources.

Another problem that might come from the baggage is that we insist on having all our gear and equipment and training just right before we ever get around to doing ministry. Ministry is people; ministry is relationships, not equipment. If we really care about people and their relationship to God, we’ll find a way to minister to them with or without all the fancy equipment, and whether or not we have been fully trained, certified, licensed, etc. Believe it or not, somehow the early Church managed to spread the gospel all over the middle east without a single computer or microphone, and they didn’t have evangelism training programs!

The world outside the nest can be dangerous; there are hawks and snakes and cats and cars. We could get hurt out there. We like it in the nest, because it is comfortable and safe in here. I think that one of the main reasons why we do not talk about our faith more with people is because we are afraid of being rejected by them. That’s not an unrealistic possibility. Jesus told His men to expect that.

Mark 6:11, “And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” He anticipates that some places will not welcome the disciples. We might anticipate the same thing. Not everyone will see the gospel as good news. So we should expect opposition; we should expect that some will not welcome our efforts to tell them about the Lord. So what? They aren’t going to crucify us like they did the disciples. At the very worst, they’ll reject us as friends. That will be tragic, but not as tragic as if we had never told them how to be right with God.

Jesus says that when we encounter situations where the people reject our message, we are to “shake the dust off our feet”. This is a way of saying that we have fulfilled our responsibility to them, and now they are fully responsible for their standing before God. It reminds me of what God said to Ezekiel, 3:18-19, “When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. [19] But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.” We have a responsibility before God to tell people about Him; we are not responsible for their response. That doesn’t mean we don’t still care for them, and pray for them; but if they’ve made it clear they don’t want to hear it again, we do not impose on them, and we can leave them alone with a clear conscience.

There were two parts to the disciples’ ministry on this “short term mission” to Galilee, and they are the same two parts that need to be in our ministry as well. The first is a message from the King.

Mark 6:12, “They went out and preached that people should repent.” This was part of Jesus’ message right from the very beginning. Mark 1:14, “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” Let’s see what we can learn about the message we have for people.

First, it’s not our message; it’s the King’s message. The word “preach” in Mark 6:12 means to act like a royal herald, riding from village to village, announcing to people what the King has said. The herald does not have the freedom to make up his own message, or to change what the King has said, or even to give his opinion about it. He has to faithfully proclaim the message that has been given to him. That’s our job, too. God in His mercy has preserved His message to the world in this book, the Bible, and our job is to faithfully tell others what He says in here. We can’t make it up; we can’t change it. We pass on to others the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Secondly, there is something to believe. Believe the good news. The good news is that God loves you, and has reconciled you to Himself in Christ. Jesus, the Son of God has come to earth, to die in your place at the bar of God’s judgment, and now God is free to forgive you all your sins and welcome you into His fellowship forever. Believe that. Trust Jesus to have paid the penalty for your sins, trust Him to make you right with God.

Third, repentance is a prerequisite for reconciliation. You can’t very well be reconciled to someone if you don’t admit that you’ve offended them. You can’t be in a relationship with God if you don’t admit you have sinned against Him.

This seems obvious to us, but this is often a stumbling block for many people today. The reigning philosophy of our culture has defined sin out of existence. Very many people take offense at the notion that they are sinners. They don’t believe they are sinners, because they don’t believe there is any such thing as sin. They think there are no moral absolutes, everyone is free to live however they want, so no matter what they do, it’s fine. Until God gets through that error and convicts them of their sin, they will never see their need for a Savior. But this is part and parcel of the King’s message: repent.

Repent means more than just feel sorry for your sin. It means to change your mind about it, to turn away from it, to hate it and commit yourself to not doing that any more. The person who says they repent of their sin but doesn’t change their life is fooling themselves.

If you want to be in the Kingdom of God, you have to accept Jesus as your King. It doesn’t make any sense at all to say that you are in the kingdom if you do not accept His authority over your life. Jesus made this point in many different ways, but here’s just one to illustrate it: Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' (that’s synonymous with “King”) and do not do what I say?” If He’s the Lord of your life, if He’s your King, then that means He has the right to tell you how to live, and you need to do it. Otherwise, again, you are fooling yourself into thinking that you are saved.

So this was the message that the disciples went out preaching: the Lord loves you so much that He wants to be in a relationship with you that will last forever. In order to get into that relationship, you need to trust what Jesus has done for you on the cross, turn away from your sins, and obey Jesus as the King of your life. That’s our message, too.

But there was a second part to their ministry in addition to the message: it was a demonstration of the King’s mercy.

Mark 6:13, “They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” Part of the message is that God loves people. But this is not just a disembodied philosophical idea—it’s the kind of love that gets down and dirty with people; it’s the kind of love that left the glories of heaven for the squalor of first-century Palestine; it’s the kind of love that laid down on a cross. So when Jesus sends His men out to multiply His ministry throughout Galilee, He sends them to care for the very real, practical needs of the people. Don’t just tell them that God loves them—show them!

I think that God still calls His church to drive out demons and heal people, but since He doesn’t seem to do that very often, what are some other practical ways we could demonstrate to folks the compassion of Jesus? We could

C serve the homeless families who come to us through Interfaith Hospitality Network

There are hundreds of ways to do it, and one of them suits you perfectly with your talents and interests.

The reason this is so important is that there has been a split, a bifurcation in the American church between these two halves of Christ’s mission. Jesus preached and healed; He sent His men to preach and heal; but in the 1920s, the American church split into a liberal half that lost faith in the gospel, and only wanted to heal people’s bodies and minds, and a fundamentalist half that reacted to the liberal “social gospel” and only wanted to save people’s souls. If we are to be Christ’s ministers in the fullest sense, we have to do both. We have to find a way to minister to the whole person, not just one half or the other.

Finally, we see in this incident of Jesus sending the Twelve out on their first mission, the beginning of a very intentional plan He had to train His men. This plan has been adopted successfully by leaders in every endeavor known to man. I’ve heard it called the phases of leadership.

Early on in His ministry, Jesus was demonstrating for the disciples what He was doing, and what they would be doing later. We see this spelled out clearly with the twin aspects of preaching/teaching and casting out demons. Right from the very start, Mark tells us this is why Jesus called them. Mark 3:14-15, “He appointed twelve--designating them apostles--that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach [15] and to have authority to drive out demons.”

Jesus started His public ministry preaching (Mark 1:15). He taught in the synagogue ( 1:21); sitting in a boat out on the lake so the large crowd could hear Him (4:1-2); He taught in parables, and explained the parables to the disciples (4:33-34); He taught in the synagogue on the Sabbath (6:2); and in the towns and villages of Galilee (6:6-7).

Pretty much simultaneously with that teaching ministry, Jesus was also casting out demons.

There was a man in the synagogue (Mark 1:23-26); many people with demons who were brought to Him at Peter’s house in Capernaum (1:34); He drove out demons from people all over Galilee (1:39); He did this so often that the religious leaders suggested He was only able to do it because He was in league with the devil (3:22).

In all these instances, Jesus was demonstrating for His disciples how you do it. They got to watch, up close and personal, and I’m sure there were many conversations about all this around the campfire, or in homes at night.

But then starting here in Mark 6, Jesus begins to delegate this responsibility to the disciples.

Mark says, (6:7, 12-13) “Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. …[12] They went out and preached that people should repent. [13] They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” Jesus is not just doing it Himself anymore; He has multiplied His ministry twelve-fold by delegating responsibility to His men.

The next step is to supervise those to whom you have delegated responsibility. If you just let them hang out there on their own, they may flounder. They need help in interpreting their experiences, in evaluating what they did well or not so well, and in making plans to do it better the next time.

When they got back from their first “short term mission trip” by themselves, Jesus met with them to debrief that experience. Mark 6:30, “The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.”

Then there was a period where Jesus continued these first three steps: There were more demonstrations for them of both His teaching and His healing (Mk 7:25-26; 9:18-29). There was more delegation: At one point He sent out 72 of His followers by twos to do the same things (Luke 10:1, 17) More supervision: When they got back, they had another time to debrief what happened with Jesus (Luke 10:18ff).

Then, finally, came the day when Jesus released His disciples to go do it on their own. John 20:21, Jesus said, "… As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." He would always be there, but now He was way in the background, watching, helping, encouraging and empowering them from heaven. The book of Acts records for us how the disciples continued Jesus’ ministry of teaching/preaching, and casting out demons[1].

The apostles, and those they would reach, were Jesus’ only method of reaching the whole world. But He didn’t just sign them up, give them a gospel gun, and send them out to do it. He trained them. And these four phases of leadership are a fantastic way to train a person to do almost anything.

First, demonstrate for them what you want them to do. Let them watch you carefully. Show them exactly how you want it done.

Second, delegate the responsibility for the task to them in small doses. Don’t abandon them, but give them the responsibility for a limited time with a limited scope.

Then supervise their efforts: how did they do? What was that like for them? How did they feel about it? Where could they improve? Maybe they need to see you do it a few more times. Then give them some more opportunities to try it and debrief each of those times. When they’ve got it, then release them to do it on their own, and to train another generation.

Even though Paul was not one of the original Twelve, he understood the importance of keeping the generations in view. He said to the young pastor, Timothy, whom he had trained, 2 Tim. 2:2, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” In this verse there are four generations of disciples: Paul, Timothy, reliable men, and the others they will teach.

So whether it is training another person to be able to lead a Home Fellowship Group so you can multiply your ministry and serve far more people, or training someone to run a machine at work, or to be able to manage a process, or sell a widget, or whatever it is, this is a powerful way to train people who will then be fully capable of passing it on to another generation.

[1] 1. Teaching/preaching. Peter preached powerfully at Pentecost, and again later on the temple steps. All the apostles were apparently involved in teaching, because the early Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42). When administrative matters threatened to take over their time, the apostles wisely delegated those responsibilities to deacons so they could “give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4).

2. Casting out demons: Acts 5:16 apostles: Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed. Acts 8:7 Philip: With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed.

Acts 16:16 Paul: Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her. Paul: Acts 19:11-12 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, [12] so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.