"And He Sent Them Out?”

Jesus went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him and on the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished saying, where did this man get these things? What is this wisdom given to him? How were such mighty works done by his hands, is not that the carpenter, the son of Mary and of brothers, James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and are not his sisters here with us, and they took offense at him and Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown among his relatives and in his own household and he could do no mighty works there except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them and he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went among the villages teaching and he called the 12 and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits.

He charged them to take nothing for their journey except the staff. No bread, no bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics, and he said to them, when you enter a house, stay there until you depart from there and if that place does not receive you and they will not listen to you when you leave, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them, so they went out and proclaim to the people that they should repent and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil. Many who were sick and healed them. This is the gospel of the Lord. You may be seated.

Dear friends in Christ. As we look at this text this morning, it amazes me how quickly that people can turn. Jesus is in his hometown, preaching in the local synagogue and their first thought is they're amazed by him and they even start commenting to one another. “Where did he get such wisdom? Oh, where did he get these teachings and the astonishing things he's done,” and then somebody pipes up over on the side and says, “Hey, wait, wait, that's Mary and Joseph's boy, that's the carpenter kid. His brothers are here. His sisters are here among us,” and then they took offense at him.

You see, Joseph and Mary were known in the town as was the little boy Jesus, and so this group of people wanted nothing to do with him. They were blinded to the reality of who he really was because of their inset prejudice against him. He had already made up in their mind who he was and what they knew of him, but they were sorely wrong. Invite you to open your bulletin to the third inside pages. We worked through our text today.

Let's be honest. The first one we can all fill in.

People are fickle.

Yeah, we know it. It wasn't just an issue for the people of Jesus' Day and boy, they ran into the fickleness of God's people all the time and that's why there were prophets. God had to send prophets to his own people over and over and over because they were so fickle. They kept changing their mind, or one day they worshiped him. They loved him, they adored him. They followed him and the next day the next thing you know, they're making golden calves and they're worshiping other gods and they fallen away, so he had to send prophets.

in our old testament texts this morning we we see Ezekiel being sent and Ezekiel was not exactly a willing servant. Ezekiel doesn't really want to go to this. People who are rebellious to God and he says he's.

He's sitting there. It's a beautiful text. He's sitting here minding his own business too. The Lord comes and talks to him and as he starts talking to him, he says, this spirit compelled me to stand up, right? He, he didn't want to stand up, but the Spirit compelled him to stand. Come on now, on your feet, you know, and up he goes. Now he's standing and he says, now I want you to go and preach to these rebellious people. He doesn't say, I want you to go preach to my beautiful beloved children. No, no. He calls them what they are is rebellious people, and then he gives him this final word and he says, I want you to go and preach to them in my name, what I tell you and whether they listen or not, they will know that a prophet has been among them.

That's what it was like for Jesus. Those were words that echoed just what Jesus would find. Father said, I'm sending you to a rebellious people and whether they believe in you or not, they will know a prophet has been among them. Isn't that what happened in the temple? I mean, they even said he has amazing teaching. He has wonderful ideas. He's done great things right. They knew a prophet was among them until all of a sudden they were swayed just a few simple words. They went from astonished at who he was too offended by who he was. That's fickle but aren't we the same way. We have sports heroes teams that we love and adore and cheer for and all the sudden they let us down. They dropped the ball and our favorite player was not that lousy bum. Right? The sports team that we hailed as the greatest team ever, they lose four in a row and we say that team can't do anything right. We're fickle people. We're so easily swayed. One way or another, you can rise and fall so quickly.