He Sent Them Luke 9:1-9 A new phase began as our Lord Jesus Christ concluded His ministry in Galilee. The twelve apostles had observed His work of healing, preaching, and teaching, and now it was time for them to get involved in the work personally. During those years of training, they had come to understand, at least in a measure, that healing was a means to an end, not the end itself. The signs associated with healing emphasized the all-important message of the Gospel.
In the Gospel of Luke, the first three chapters are about the birth, lineage, and early life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then, five chapters tell of the Lord’s ministry in Galilee and establish the proofs of His Person and His authority as the sovereign God who was here on earth as the Son of Man. Two-thirds of the Gospel of Luke, the last sixteen chapters, are devoted to the events and teaching of the Lord in the last few months of His life here on earth. The book's first third is essential to establishing and revealing who Jesus is. The last two-thirds are occupied with the message of the Gospel itself.
His unique birth and all that was evidence of His power and authority over nature, demons, disease, and death enforce that He can forgive sins today the same as He did in that time. He is the same now as He was then. He is unchanging in every aspect of His being. The One who lived here as the Son of Man is the eternal Son of God. As a Man, He came here to give His life as a ransom for all. We are sinners by nature and by choice and, consequently, are separated from God.
As a conclusion to the years of His ministry in Galilee, those twelve whom He had trained and taught by word and example were to be participants in the work He was doing. He had chosen them to “be with Him, and He might send them forth to preach.” He gave them their first real commission to go over all the cities and villages, including Judea and other places, and do in those places the same things that He was doing – casting out demons, healing the sick, and preaching the Gospel. There comes a time in our lives when we have to get up and do everything we have been taught. That is when our faith becomes real to us, and it is real and living in us.
The disciples had watched the Lord Jesus control the wind and the waves. They had seen that even the fish do what He wants. They had watched Him heal the diseased and the sick. They had observed Him raise a dead young man who was being carried out to be buried and three of them had watched Him give life back to a twelve-year-old girl. Now, while He continued His work in a final journey through Galilee, He sent the twelve to go throughout Israel to show evidence that the kingdom of God was here.
It would have taken quite a while for that to be done, so no one could say they had no opportunity to know what the true kingdom of God was like. Those twelve men traveled with the simple basics. They weren’t there to gain popularity or a lofty position but to give a needed message to lost souls and reinforce it in a way that could not be denied. The healing of the sick and diseased and the casting out of demons was done by the power of the Lord working through those chosen men.
We are not apostles because we have not seen the Lord in His body, nor have we been commissioned by Him personally with audible words from His mouth after His resurrection, but we do have a commission. We have a written commission from the same Lord as those twelve men. We are to go into the world and preach the Gospel. We are to make disciples and baptize them. We are to teach them to do the same things we have been told. We, too, have divine authority behind what we do. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the One who gave that responsibility to us.
The Lord’s method was to empower the disciples to do what He wanted them to do. He knew there would be those who would not accept them and their message, so He told them what to do when rejected. Those times would come, and they would disassociate themselves from those who rejected them because those communities rejected the Lord. He also held the twelve accountable to Him, and they were to report what they had done and what had happened due to their work.
We are to follow these principles in our work for the Lord. He has commissioned us to carry out His work, and that is done through responsible leaders in local assemblies who know us and assume responsibility for us and what we do. There are times when it is appropriate to cover a whole area with the message of the Gospel in one way or another and when a specific location for a specific reason is designated. The object of Jesus’ journey to Sychar in Samaria was to reach one woman, and through her testimony, the way was opened for many others to come to Christ.
To depend on others as we go with the Lord’s commission may be personally humbling, but some good effects can come from being skinned down to the basics of survival. It was plain that the Messiah had not come to make people rich, and it was also made clear that it was essential for those apostles to learn to rely on God, not on themselves. A further benefit was that those people involved with them in each community, in one way or another, would be more receptive to the message they brought. By staying in the homes of local people, they would come to know them personally. That is a very positive way of reaching people with the Gospel.
There are many things that can encumbrance us in our service to the Lord if we allow ourselves to be concerned with what we think are our needs. Too much “stuff,” whether it be tools we think are needed or things we don’t think we can do without for our own comfort, can get us off the objective of one person telling others how to be saved and what the word of God teaches after they are saved. Our Lord knows what we need.
When we are committed to preaching and teaching the word of God, He gives us the power and authority to carry out His commands. The Lord wants a report of what happened because the ministry we are engaged in is an extension of His. He helps us do what is needed and holds us accountable.
When the disciples shook the dust off their feet after being rejected in a community, that was a sign against those who had rejected the Gospel. They had chosen to reject God’s message, and so the messengers were to separate themselves from any association with them. They had repudiated God's mercy by rejecting His message of salvation. It had no effect on them, and they didn’t want what was offered.
In our labors for the Lord, as we respond to the commission He gave, we will reject both the message and the messengers. Our preparation should involve careful and prayerful preparation of our hearts to deliver the message in an appropriate way and manner. If we have carefully and faithfully presented Christ to those who are not saved and our message is rejected, we must move on. We are not responsible for what the listeners do with what they hear. Suppose they reject the message that is a choice they have made with God as a witness. Our responsibility is to give it clearly.
Herod would have known about what Jesus had been doing in his jurisdiction. When another twelve men started doing the same things and spreading out across the whole nation, he became afraid of what the consequences would be to him. The popularity of the Lord Jesus with the rank and file of the area was increasing, and he would be worried about what would happen next. This movement was growing. Even though some said John the Baptist rose from the dead, Herod knew he was dead because he had beheaded him. The person who followed John had greater power, authority, and popularity. No wonder he said, “Who is this?!”
People today are still asking that question regarding Jesus. To admit that Jesus is the Son of God, who came as the Son of Man to save people who are lost, goes against the feelings of comfort people want to get from religion. The “Christian religion” has deteriorated from people following Christ and being known as “Christ’s ones” to a popular form of entertainment and a “feel-good” condition of self-deception. A great philosopher, a prophet, a pious teacher, and a political rabble-rouser are descriptions people make of Jesus. Many make Him out to be no more than they are as far as a person, and those who associate with Him as true “Christians” are intolerant bigots who mess up society by not conforming to what is acceptable by the “masses.”
In the days when our Lord was here, many did the same. Some said He was John the Baptist risen from the dead or one of the old prophets like Elijah came back to life. Luke wrote of this important change in the ministry of the Lord Jesus to make it plain that this was not just a one-man ministry for a short time. John the Baptist’s work was an example of a short-term ministry.
This was different in that it started with the Lord Jesus Christ, expanded by His authority to the twelve, and continues to be expanded by all believers worldwide. Each believer has a part in the work of God, like a brick added to a building that is rising to become a great dwelling place of God. An even better description is that of a small but complete human being, like an infant child, who grows into a full-grown adult. The church of God is a complete entity that grows as more are added to the number, and its size is increasing.
The Lord was preparing His disciples for the worldwide ministry of His church, which they were the foundation of. We must always keep before us that we are part of that same work of which they are a part. We must never take casually or carelessly our responsibility to represent the kingdom of God and our Lord Jesus Christ in our generation, in the place we live, and in the best possible way we can.
“Give Them to Eat” Luke 9:10-17 The pressures of preaching and teaching people from place to place and day after day can be very draining on one’s own soul. It is like pumping water out of a well until it dries. Some private time is needed to ensure we get spiritual food from the Great Provider of “every good and perfect gift.” After a time of great blessing or trouble, time alone in fellowship with God through reading the Bible and communion with our Father in prayer restores our soul and prepares us for further service for Him.
When the disciples returned to Galilee and reported to the Lord all He had done through them, He quietly took them to an area that wasn’t inhabited, where rest for each body, soul, and spirit would be greatly welcomed. However, human need doesn’t cease, and a crowd of people followed Jesus to be healed in body and nurtured in soul by listening to the Gospel.
Interruptions will often change our plans, but those occasions may be opportunities of which we need to take advantage. When that happens, don’t be impatient with people or short-tempered even within yourself because we are in the world to meet the needs of others and serve our Master, who gives us the strength to do His will. The Lord Jesus looked at people with compassion as sheep going astray without a shepherd, not as nuisances. Our extremity is God’s opportunity to work His will in remarkable ways.
The Lord Jesus Christ welcomed that crowd of people and taught them truths about the kingdom of God. Much of His teaching in the four Gospels describes the kingdom of God and special features about it in comparison to the kingdoms of men on earth. Entrance into the kingdom of God is by being born again by the Spirit and the word of God. People are called to repentance before God and to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation and entrance into His kingdom.
The kingdom of God is a spiritual and eternal kingdom. People must seek first the kingdom of God before and above all other concerns they might have. There will be persecution of one kind or another for those in the kingdom of God because they have different reasons for living than others. The objectives of those in the kingdom of God are in the future. That is where lasting blessings are found. Any satisfaction we find here is temporary and fleeting at its best. We work in the kingdom's interests and pray that it will come and be recognized worldwide.
The place where the Lord took His disciples was at a considerable distance from Bethsaida, but the distance did not keep the sick and needy from seeking the Lord. He didn’t consider them to be an interruption, and He both taught and healed them there. Healing was for their comfort but also a testimony to the authority of His words about the kingdom of God. We show our faith through the things we do and the reasons for doing them. When we want “things” for our own self-centered reasons and pray for them, we will not receive them to “consume upon our lusts.” When our purpose is for the glory of God and the furtherance of His kingdom, we can “ask” and “knock,” and God will answer.
Hungry people need to be fed, whether physical hunger or hunger and thirst after righteousness. The multitude of five thousand men, besides women and children, needed both kinds of food, and the Lord supplied them both. His teaching gave them food for the souls and spirits of those who heard and responded to His words. Then, He met the needs of every person there by multiplying five loaves of bread and two small fish by the action of His authority over nature as the Creator and Sustainer of all things. Every person there ate until they were filled.
That miracle is the only one recorded in all four Gospels, and the emphasis in each case is suitable for the book's focus. The Gospel of John’s account of this miracle marks a turning point in His life here. He had been teaching the fact that heavenly things are more important than earthly things. When He fed the multitude of people in Galilee, and they were freely given food, they tried to force Him to become their king right then. Perhaps they thought that if He were their king, they wouldn’t have to work anymore. After a short time of teaching His own disciples, which included the time He walked on water, the Lord left Galilee to go to Jerusalem.
The Lord Jesus Christ was the Perfect Man who understood people like us. He loved His disciples and the people for whom He came to die so He could bring them to God. His provision for them was to meet their need, not merely to give them temporary pleasure. We may not have much to give to the Lord, but when we give what we have, like the boy with five loaves of bread and two small fish, God can use that because “Little is much when God is in it.” We may not think our contribution to the Lord is much. We should give what God has given us to use here while we can meet our needs. The time may come when we will not be able to give or do anything. Giving what we have is one way to glorify God in our body and spirit, which He has purchased with His own precious blood.