In Jesus' Name

Our message tonight is titled, In Jesus Name.

Did you know Christians are called Christians after Jesus' name?

Jesus Christ, Christianity.

Christianity is the faith built on the belief that those who believe in Jesus' name are given the right to become children of God, in Jesus' name.

Eternal life begins in Jesus' name.

Every prayer ends in Jesus' name, amen.

The gospels end with the commission to go and make disciples of all nations in Jesus' name.

The Christian life is lived in Jesus' name.

And tonight, as we think about what it means to follow Jesus, I think it's important for us to get a hold of what life in Jesus' name means.

Fortunately, I think our passage tonight gives us some principles and helps us to reflect on what mission in Jesus' name means.

Let me pray.

Father, we come to your word wanting to hear from you, wanting to be challenged, convicted, encouraged, rebuked, and comforted.

So we pray you would do that by your spirit.

I pray that the words I say would be the ones that you give me and anything else would fall to the ground.

We want to become more like Jesus and glorify him now, in Jesus' name, amen.

Anyone like any weird sandwich combinations?

In primary school, I was introduced to the banana and sugar sandwich.

My wife's family liked the avocado and vegemite sandwich.

We got any weird sandwiches out there?

Fairy bread with sausage and tomato sauce.

Any more weird sandwiches?

We can't top that.

Even this morning, that is the weirdest sandwich I've ever heard of.

There's a lot of weird sandwiches out there.

The second weirdest sandwich is that one.

The weirdest sandwich, I would put it to you, is these two stories.

We have these two stories that on a surface level have nothing in common.

We have a story of Jesus sending and empowering his 12 disciples two by two, and then the unceremonious beheading of John the Baptist.

And were it not for verse 30, which I made sure that Hamish read, we would read these stories as totally separate.

Just two different stories stacked on top of each other.

But in verse 30, Mark returns to the theme of the disciples coming back, inviting us to see that these two stories are a sandwich.

A weird, weird sandwich.

But our job tonight, I think, is to figure out why Mark has put these two stories together.

Sometimes in sermons, we ask a question and then we don't answer it till the very end.

Other times, we ask a question and then we answer it, and then we ask you to keep listening for 30 minutes as we unpack that.

This is one of those messages.

Why has Mark put these two stories together?

Because he is illustrating what it looks like to live on mission in Jesus' name.

We are going to work through these two stories.

In the first story, the disciples are sent out on mission, two by two, in Jesus' name.

And then the second story comes in, and it gives us a vivid narrative illustration of what it means to be on mission in Jesus' name.

These two stories, even though they seem to have nothing in common, compliment each other in a particular way.

Mark is illustrating what it looks like to live on mission in Jesus' name.

So we're going to work through the first story first.

As you probably know, we've been working our way through the Gospel of Mark in 2024.

We're currently six chapters in or six and a half chapters in.

And so far, if you can cast your mind back to everything we've studied in Mark so far, Jesus has never sent the disciples out to do anything.

Jesus has been the one teaching, doing miracles, casting out demons, healing people, never the disciples.

And so we come to this moment in the story and it's very significant in the big picture of Mark's Gospel because it is the first time Jesus actually sends the disciples out to do something.

But even still, even though it's the first time that he sends them out now, we know that it was Jesus' plan from the beginning that he would raise up the disciples to do as he did.

From the beginning of Mark in Mark 1 verse 16.

As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother, Andrew, casting their net into the lake, for they were fishermen.

Come, follow me, Jesus said, and I will send you out to fish for people.

That line, we'll come back to that.

At once they left their nets and followed him.

When he'd gone a little further, he saw James, son of Zebedee, and his brother, John, in a boat preparing their nets.

Without delay, he called them, and they left their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired man and followed him.

That line, I will send you out to fish for people, is more literally, I will make you fishers of people, which was a saying in the first century, an idiom, which meant something like, I will train you up to become a rabbi, a teacher, a disciple maker is what a fisher of people was thought of.

So what we see is the invitation that Jesus extends to his disciples is the invitation to come and do as I do.

From the very beginning, Jesus was training up the disciples to continue his ministry, to do as he did.

He trained them up.

Later on in Mark's Gospel, we see the moment where he formalizes his teacher, apprentice relationship with the 12 in Mark 3 verse 13.

Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him.

He appointed 12 that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach, to have authority, to drive out demons.

And these are the 12, dot, dot, dot.

It gives the list of the 12.

So now, that's kind of a bit of a tracing of the story of the disciples in the first six chapters.

We come to tonight's passage, verses six and seven.

Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village, calling the 12 to him.

He began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.

It's interesting, the repetition between those two verses that I read.

In Mark 3, Jesus calls the 12 and there's kind of this foreshadowing that one day he will send them out and give them authority.

Well, now in chapter six, it actually happens.

Jesus gives them authority and sends them out.

And that's because that was always the plan.

Jesus was always raising up the disciples to do as he did.

And so far, for the six odd chapters that we've looked at, Mark, the disciples have been more or less passively observing Jesus.

Jesus is healing people, teaching, doing miracles, casting out demons, and the disciples are watching him, observing, seeing how he does things until this moment.

Now the mission of Jesus becomes the disciples' mission.

And we couldn't, we shouldn't call this the Great Commission, because that's separate.

But I think we should call it the Good Commission, the Lesser Commission, because it's not the final sending out, but it is a really important sending out that Jesus does to his disciples.

He sends them out two by two.

And I imagine the disciples at this point excited.

Remember, from the very beginning, when Jesus invited them to follow him, the promise was, I will make you do what I do.

The disciples have been waiting for the moment when they would go and preach the Gospel.

They might heal people and cast out demons.

Well, now it's finally happening.

So they're thinking, how did Jesus do it?

What words did he say?

What was his posture?

How did he talk to people?

The disciples are now on the mission of Jesus.

A cool little thing which I found was, when Jesus called his disciples, he called them two by two.

Remember, he saw James and his brother, Andrew fishing, and he said, come follow me, and they did.

And then he walked a bit further and he saw James and his brother, John, and he said, come follow me.

Well now, six chapters later, Jesus, having called them two by two, sends them out two by two to witness to the ministry of Jesus.

This is the good commission, Jesus sending his disciples out for the first time.

And as he sends them out, he gives them some instructions, verse eight.

These were his instructions.

Take nothing for the journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.

Wear sandals but not an extra shirt.

It's a curious set of instructions that he gives them.

He says, take a staff, sandals and one shirt, not even a spare shirt, nothing more than that and nothing less.

He's telling them, pack light.

You don't have time to be carrying around more stuff than that.

Now, I read that and I think I could not do that.

I personally am not a light packer.

I'm the guy who, when I go on holidays, I bring two pairs of everything, just in case I soil my undies every day for a five-day holiday.

Even though I haven't done that in 20 years, since I was five years old, I think, well, what if it happens for the first time on this holiday?

I'm not a light packer.

Even in my puffer jacket, just here, I was going to wear it, but the collar would hit the mic.

In my puffer jackets, in a pocket, I always carry around with me my AirPods, a pen, my pawpaw ointment, and a bag of tissues.

And so, I want to be ready.

Whatever life throws at me, I can whip out my pawpaw, do up my lips, and I'm ready to take on life.

I do not want to be caught unprepared.

And yet, here's Jesus sending his disciples out with a staff, one shirt, and a pair of sandals.

He says, do not take any money.

Don't take a bag.

Don't take anything else that could help you to pave the way for your own mission.

Why does Jesus say that?

I think it's because he's inviting them to totally depend on the provision of the Father.

He's saying, don't bring money to buy bread.

Don't even bring bread.

Don't bring a bag to store the bread that you might buy, but trust that God our Father will provide for you at every step of your mission.

Jesus says, you must totally depend on the Father.

And the reason he said that is because that's what Jesus did.

He doesn't give them an instruction that he doesn't himself practice.

But Jesus himself in his six chapters worth of ministry so far in Mark has lived totally dependent on the provision of the Father.

So many times in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we see Jesus stealing away to spend a night in prayer with the Father.

He knew that he could not do what he had come to earth to do unless he totally depended on the Father.

And so as he sends his disciples out, he says, go in mission in my name and do it the way I do it, which means totally depending on the Father.

That's how Jesus lived.

That's the life that he modeled for his disciples.

We see then in verse 10 more of Jesus' instructions in this good commission, verse 10.

Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town.

And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.

Again, this is a weird instruction.

I wonder what would be so bad about the disciples staying here for a couple nights, then moving to a different house for a couple nights, moving over here for a couple nights.

Jesus says, enter one house, stay in that house as long as you're in the town, and then move on.

He says, you don't have time to pick and choose and find the nicest house in the town.

He says, you are on a mission and there is not time.

What he's saying, I think, is we're looking for open doors.

The disciples needed to totally depend on the Father to have a place to sleep that night.

They are looking for an open door that they might sleep at someone's house and eat at their table.

And in the same way, more importantly, the disciples are looking for an open door for conversation.

Jesus says, if any place will not receive you and welcome you, if there is no openness to a conversation about God, just leave.

The mission is too important to waste your time on people who will not listen.

And that's a principle for us on our mission.

And again, Jesus isn't giving instructions that he doesn't himself follow.

Jesus lived that way.

Jesus was looking for open doors of opportunity.

In fact, Hamish gave us a bit of a preview of the story which came before tonight's story.

Jesus entered his own hometown of Nazareth and they did not receive him.

So Jesus left.

He knew there's no openness here.

There's no opportunity for me to do anything.

So Jesus valued his own time and the urgency of his mission and he moved on.

And that's why he told the disciples to do the same thing.

Down to verse 12.

The 12 went out and preached that people should repent.

They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

Three things that we see the disciples do.

Preach repentance, drive out demons and heal sick people.

Now, after six chapters, six months in the Gospel of Mark, if you had to summarize basically what Jesus himself has been doing for six chapters, I don't think you could get a better list of three things than those three things.

That is what Jesus did.

That's what he's been doing for six chapters.

Preaching repentance, driving out demons and healing sick people.

And now Jesus says, go and do what I did.

Go do those three things, and the disciples go.

They are on mission in Jesus' name.

And then we get to verse 14, and this is the beginning of the bottom piece of the sandwich or the second weird ingredient in the sandwich.

This is a hinge point in the passage.

Verse 14, King Herod heard about this for Jesus' name had become well known.

It's a fascinating verse because even though it says King Herod heard about this, in the original Greek, there is no this.

The word this isn't there.

More literally, it's, and King Herod heard.

So we think, well, what has he heard about?

Logically, we would say the previous sentence is talking about the disciples and what they did on mission.

The disciples went and preached the gospel, cast out demons and healed sick people, and King Herod heard.

So, King Herod had heard about what the disciples were doing in their mission.

And yet, this is awesome, I think.

It is not the disciples' name that is becoming well-known, but Jesus' name.

As the disciples, Peter, James, John, the rest of the 12, and Andrew, and the other six, as they go on mission in Jesus' name, it is not Peter's name that he is preaching in, not Andrew's, James, John, Bartholomew, Nathaniel, it is Jesus' name that becomes well-known.

The disciples are on mission in Jesus' name, and even though King Herod hears about the disciples' mission, it is Jesus' name that is glorified and made much of and becomes well-known even in King Herod's court.

The word apostolo in Greek means send.

It's the word that is used when Jesus sent them out in verse 7.

Jesus sent them out is apostolo.

An apostolo as a word is very interesting because it doesn't only mean send like a letter, like hey Siri, send a message to my wife.

It means that, but also probably more pertinently, apostolo means to empower an official representative.

A better translation might be ambassador or delegate or literally apostle.

Apostolo is where we get this word apostle from.

So Jesus sends out his 12 and as he sends them, he empowers them to be his delegates, his official representation in the world, in Jesus name.

That's what it means to be sent out on mission.

And that's the mission that the disciples take is bearing the name of Jesus, which means far more than having a five-letter name on your name tag.

It means carrying the sort of weight, but the lightness of representing Jesus in the world.

That's the mission that the disciples are on.

And it is this that King Herod hears about.

King Herod hears about the things that the disciples were doing, and yet it is Jesus' name that is glorified.

The disciples are on mission in Jesus' name.

They are sent to represent Him.

And as they represent Him, they do mission in Jesus' name and in the way of Jesus, which means total dependence on the Father.

It means looking for open doors of opportunity and knowing when to move on when the time is right.

And it means understanding that we represent Jesus.

That's what mission in His name means.

But, there is a big but in this passage, because as we read through the story, after Jesus empowers and sends out the twelve, two by two, Mark, who is the author who has compiled these two stories, does a whip pan to King Herod's court to the story of the beheading of John the Baptist.

And it's kind of this whiplash moment of, hang on, we're talking about mission in Jesus' name and suddenly John the Baptist is drastically and unceremoniously killed.

Why has Mark chosen to put these two stories together?

And as I said at the start, it's because the story of John the Baptist being beheaded is a vivid narrative illustration of the very mission that the disciples have walked out on.

The mission has a cost, is what we see.

I'm not gonna read through the whole story of the Herod thing, but I'll give you a summary.

An incestuous and impetuous puppet king makes a drunken promise to his niece come stepdaughter, who is manipulated by a cunning and begrudging mother to maintain her political power by beheading the greatest prophet in the Bible, the one sent by God to preach repentance in preparation for the coming king.

In a nutshell, that is the story.

Herod, John the Baptist is very unceremoniously decapitated as part of a drunken party promise, a very insignificant death for a significant man in the story.

Mark has chosen to tell that story here because he wants us to see that that too is part of what it means to be on mission in Jesus' name.

That's the life.

That's the mission that the disciples have walked into.

It is a mission that has a cost.

Because to bear, to take on the name of Jesus, the mission of Jesus, to even to receive eternal life in His name, bears the cost of laying down your own life, spiritually and sometimes very literally, drastically to actually lose your life for the sake of the Gospel.

That's part of what mission in Jesus' name in a hostile world means.

Now, of course, for everyone in this room, it's probably very, very unlikely you will literally lose your life for the sake of the Gospel.

But fundamental to receiving King Jesus is repentance, which is a sort of laying down your life.

And it is core to the mission of Jesus that there is a cost.

So even though we might not lose our life, there is a cost to the mission of Jesus.

And I think that's why Mark has put these two stories together, to remind us of what we're getting ourselves into and what the disciples have walked into.

To summarize briefly the story of John the Baptist, Mark 1 verse 1-4.

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.

A voice of one calling in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

John preached repentance.

And the Greek word behind, sorry to keep doing the Greek thing, can't help it.

The Greek word behind repentance is metanoia.

Most literally it means think again.

It means change your mind, turn, repent, return, change your orientation.

That was John's purpose in life.

God had raised him up as the prophet who would go before Jesus and preach repentance, that people might turn back to God.

And so, fitting with his character, John the Baptist preached repentance to King Herod's face.

He said, it's not right.

This incestuous relationship you have with your niece, who has now become your wife, so there is a bloodline connection because Herodias was his brother's daughter, then became his brother's wife and now Herod's wife.

There's all sorts of gross and messiness happening.

John the Baptist preached repentance to King Herod.

He said, it's not right, this thing that you're doing.

Verse 19, so Herodias, which is Herod's unlawful wife, Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him, but she was not able to because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man.

When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled, yet he liked to listen to him.

I think there's an interesting tension here that Herod both liked to listen to John.

He was really puzzled by the things he said, and yet when the time came, he didn't really hesitate to decapitate John the Baptist.

He was challenged and convicted by the repentance that John preached.

And I think that is the tension of mission in Jesus' name, because every one of us who follow Jesus, we bear and we embody the good news of eternal life in Jesus' name.

Forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with the Father, life and life to the full, as Jesus says in John 10.

We come preaching peace for anxiety, purpose, hope, joy, love, relationship with a community that is encouraging.

It is good news.

And so I think the world probably rightly says, oh, that sounds great, I'll take that please.

But the tension is that you can't have the kingdom without bowing the knee to the king.

And that's the moment where we lose the world.

Is they would love to have forgiveness.

I mean, probably not, because they wouldn't admit that they've done anything wrong.

But eternal life, purpose, joy, love, peace, hope, I'll take that.

But when the necessary part of the gospel comes, it says, oh, if you want the kingdom, you must declare Jesus is Lord.

That's when we lose them.

We live in a society that is pluralistic and highly secular here in the West, where I think it's fair to say the one great commandment is I shall have no other God before me.

So the modern Western person out there, our friends, coworkers, family, spouses even, they hear that message of the kingdom and they want it, but they will not yield their life to King Jesus.

We shall have no other gods before us.

That was the tension that Herod felt.

On the one hand, he loved to listen to the things Herod was talking about.

He was puzzled and intrigued, and yet he did not repent.

As we go out in mission on Jesus' name, I think we should expect the same tension today.

We might be very well received about part of our message and flatly ignored and even treated as hostile for another part of our message.

Imagine this story from John the Baptist's perspective.

He is a prophet doing exactly what God wants him to do, preaching repentance.

He is squarely in the will of God, and yet his life, the life of who Jesus says is the most significant man born of a woman before Jesus came, the greatest of all.

This prophet is killed as a byproduct of a drunken promise that a psychotic, lunatic, incestuous, impetuous puppet king makes when he has all these mates around for his birthday.

John the Baptist dies as a meaningless side character in Herod's wild party.

It's a challenging aspect of what it means to be on mission in Jesus' name.

There is a cost, and maybe the cost.

Most likely, the cost for us is not death, literal death, but it is rejection, resistance, hostility, a pushing back of our friends and family.

Are we ready for that part of the mission?

I think John probably could have got himself out of prison.

If John the Baptist had have said, okay fine, Herod, it's actually totally fine for you to marry your niece.

I was wrong, please forgive me.

Probably Herod would have released him because he liked to listen to him.

And if Herod, if John the Baptist had have compromised, maybe he could have left prison and gone and preached repentance and a whole lot of good would have come from that.

But he held to his gun, and he did not forsake the hard part of the Gospel.

And I think that that squarely challenges me because I would be tempted to, in the face of a secular pluralistic world that would love the kingdom but not want to bow the knee to the king, we could think, well, why don't we just preach the nice stuff?

Why don't we just give him the kingdom and just say, hey, there's a way for peace and eternal life.

And we'll leave out the part about repentance and carrying your own cross.

John the Baptist would say, you cannot compromise.

You can't not preach that we need to, in order to receive the kingdom, bow the knee to King Jesus.

He did not compromise even unto death.

And that is a challenge to us.

As we come to wrap up, I don't want us to be left with this taste in the mouth that the gospel is bad news.

It is good news.

The gospel is forgiveness of sin, reconciliation into relationship with the creator of the universe, life and life to the full.

And yes, it involves bowing the knee to Jesus, but that is the best life that any human being could have.

When I run my life, when human beings are gods of their own lives, it creates the worst world possible.

But bowing the knee to Jesus and repenting to him is the best thing a human could do.

And so I think that is what compels us to preach the gospel in Jesus' name, the fact that it is life and life to the full.

John 3.16 says, God so loved the world that he gave his son that whoever believes in him shouldn't perish but have eternal life.

It is good news that we preach.

And that is the driving impetus for our mission.

So we can't forsake the repentance required as part of the gospel.

You can't preach the kingdom without the king, but it comes together as one good news.

And maybe the world doesn't receive it.

But Jesus said, look for the open doors for those that will.

And if there's no opportunity, move on to someone who will listen.

We're on mission in Jesus' name, and that means doing mission the way that Jesus did mission.

Now I've called Mark 6 verse 7 the Good Commission.

And I only call it the Good Commission because it comes before the Great Commission.

Matthew 28.

At the very end of Jesus' earthly ministry in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to the eleven disciples, minus Judas, Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

Every follower of Jesus in this room and joining us online who believes in Jesus, receives the Great Commission, go and make disciples of all nations in Jesus' name.

And that life in Jesus' name means that from the beginning of our discipleship journey to wherever we are up to, Jesus is raising us up to do as He did, to preach good news, the availability of life in the kingdom of heaven.

That means living in total dependence on the Father.

It means looking for open doors of opportunity.

That means knowing that we are not on mission for our glory, but for the glory of the name of Jesus alone.

And, but, the mission of Jesus also brings a cost.

So we can't preach the kingdom without the king.

But we preach the availability of the good news of eternal life and forgiveness.

You might know our vision, our church's vision for this year is Go24.

We are focusing on what is the mission that God has called us to, as a church, as a collective, but then as individuals.

Where is He compelling us to go?

We're asking what kind of habits do we need to start and stop?

What do we have to say yes to and no to?

But we want to receive afresh.

We're in June, sleepy, cold June.

Halfway through the year, the fire of the passion for mission has maybe worn off a little bit, but we've got to receive afresh the mission of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the Gospel, to make disciples of all nations, to glorify His name in Hornsby, in Sydney, in Australia, and in the rest of our world.

We are on mission in Jesus' name.

Colossians 3.17 says, Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus and giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

We are on a mission, the great co-mission, in Jesus' name.

I'll close with that, verse 30.

Mark 6.30.

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to Him all they had done and taught.

My prayer for us as a church and as individuals is that when Jesus comes back, when He comes to restore and renew this broken world, that we might gather around Him and report to Him all that we had done and taught in His name.

We might share the stories of the lives transformed by the power of the Gospel, of people set free from bondage to addiction and sin and death who find life in Jesus' name, and that it all might be for the glory of the name of Jesus.

We are on mission in His name.

So let's go.

Let me pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank You for the mission that You give us.

And as we think about what it means to go in Your name, to make disciples, the first thing we have to do is repent before You.

We repent of the times when we have been God of our own life, kings and queens of ourselves, but we yield to You now and say, You are Lord.

We know that eternal life is found in no other name but the name of Jesus.

So tonight as we are in that part of the year where it gets a bit quiet and cold and dark, would You stir afresh in our hearts the fire of passion for the name of Jesus, for mission in His name?

Help us to know what it is to be on mission and to do mission the way You did it.

We want to totally depend on the Father, make the most of every opportunity and be aware that there is a cost.

But You are worth it, our Lord Jesus.

So as we come before You now to worship, would You fill this room, fill our hearts, give us the joy of eternal life and compel us on mission in Your name.

Amen.