In the sermon 'The Kingdom Expands,' Peter Allison discusses Luke 9:1-17, where Jesus empowers and commissions his disciples, granting them both power and authority to cast out demons and heal diseases. The sermon also covers the nature of authority and power, highlighting the difference between having the legal right and the ability to perform tasks. Allison explains the gospel's intended audiences, particularly focusing on Theophilus, the civil magistrate, and how the gospels were tailored to their readers. The disciples are sent out to preach and heal, emphasizing reliance on the communities they serve, underscoring their dependence on God and the people. The sermon also notes that faith is not a prerequisite for these powers, as exemplified by Judas, who was among the twelve sent out. Additionally, the expansion of God's kingdom is likened to a mustard seed, suggesting exponential growth through the disciples' work. The sermon closes with a prayer for boldness and zeal in advancing God's kingdom.

Luke chapter 9, I'd like to read the first 17 verses. Luke 9 verse 1. Luke 9 verse 1. Then he called his disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

And He said to them, Take nothing for the journey, neither staffs, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not have two tunics apiece. Whatever house you enter, stay there and from there depart, and whoever will not receive you when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them. So they departed and went through the towns preaching the gospel and healing everywhere Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him and he was perplexed because It was said by some that John had risen from the dead and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the old prophets had risen again. Herod said, John, I have beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things? So he sought to see him.

And the apostles, when they returned, told him all that they had done. Then he took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethesda. But when the multitude knew it they followed him and he received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who had need of healing. And when the day began to wear away, the twelve came to him and said, Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions, for we are in a deserted place here. He said to them, You give them something to eat.

And they said, We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people, for there were about five thousand men. Then He said to His disciples, Make them sit down in groups of fifty, and they did so, and made them all sit down. Then he took the loaves and the two fish and looking up into heaven he blessed and broke them and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled and the twelve baskets of the leftover fragments Were and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them Let us restrain our feet from every evil way that we may keep His Word. Heavenly Father, we have heard Your Word And we ask that it might be mixed with faith, that we might understand, and having understand that we may walk in obedience to it, and not be those who only hear, but do not do.

Lord, I ask as well that you would sanctify this vessel of clay, that this morning you might be glorified, that your attributes, your glory might be seen, and that your word might be opened to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well each of the gospels, as you know, was customized for the audience to whom it was written. And it was customized for the purpose for which it was written.

So where Matthew was written to the Jews to show that Jesus was the Messiah, the long-promised Messiah, and he assumes in that book a knowledge of the customs of the Jews. And Mark was written to Gentiles, to Romans, and he does so. He doesn't assume a knowledge of Jewish customs, but he rather explains anything that might be a Jewish custom. Luke's gospel is written to that civil magistrate, Theophilus, to an individual. And it assumes a knowledge of Jewish customs, especially of the temple.

He writes in a form of high Greek that approaches what classical Greek writers use, not the more ordinary or mundane Greek that much of the other New Testament books are written, the common Greek. So he's writing to somebody who would understand this level of Greek, This Theophilus, who is probably a converted Jewish priest, maybe a Sadducee, somebody who had still great influence. And he's writing to Theophilus, you remember, because he wanted to give Theophilus, whom he titles most excellent, which is a title of honor for civil magistrates, for rulers. He writes so that he would know the way more perfectly, so that he would have the ability to use his considerable influence for the kingdom, because he apparently still had influence. With the Romans, if he was a converted Sadducee, he might still have influence with Romans as well as Jews.

And he would be very familiar, of course, with all of the details of the temple. And the process is there. And the process is there. And so if he is to be able to defend Christianity, he needs a good understanding of the history himself. And he needs also an understanding of how this gospel is to go to the Gentiles as well.

How God's kingdom, how God has come to preach a gospel of the kingdom. And so this is what Luke gives him. See, up until this point, Jesus has been doing all of the work and His disciples have been watching or assisting him. And now it's time to take the next step. And you know what those steps of training are, those four basic steps, right?

Steps that all of our children go through or you went through as a child. For the first step is you watch mom and dad do whatever it is they're doing. You watch them do the work. And then as you learn a little bit more, you are able to help them do the work. You're still there doing the work, but you are assisting them.

You know what comes next and you're able to get the next tool out or the next utensil or make some sort of preparation for the next step if you're paying attention. And so the next step is you begin to assist mom and dad. But then the next step is that big step where instead of assisting mom and dad doing something, you do what they did. And they provide guidance and assistance to you, some direction. But you're the one that's doing the test.

It's your hands that are actually doing the work. And then of course the last step is where you do the work and mom and dad watch. And so the disciples here have been mostly watching Jesus as He does the work. He did the preaching, He did the healing, and they assisted. But now Jesus brings them to the next step.

They now are to do, begin to do the work that He was doing. And so this chapter just follows this progression in in chapter 8 where Jesus is ministering. He is casting out demons out of the Gataring demoniac. He is healing. He is teaching.

He's preaching the kingdom wherever he goes. Now as this chapter opens Jesus calls his 12 disciples together. He doesn't call all of his disciples he called just the 12 that he had chosen and he commissions them. He commissions them. He called his twelve disciples, he gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases and he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

That word sent is the word from which we get the word apostle. That's what an apostle is. Somebody who is sent on a mission. Have you ever been sent on a mission by somebody in authority? Well, Jesus sent his disciples on a mission.

It was a mission to preach the kingdom and to heal the sick. He commissioned them. When you commission somebody, You give them power and authority. Power and authority to do the work that you are commissioning them to do. And so Jesus gives his disciples authority to do the work.

They have authority. Authority is a little different from power. Authority is the legal right to do what you're doing. The legal right to command something. If you have authority to pass a law, then you have the right, you have the legal right to do it.

So Jesus gives his disciples authority over demons and authority to cure diseases. He's commissioned them to do this work. It's exact work that he has been doing. He also gives them power to do the work. Power to do the work.

The work. That power is the ability to do something. You can have power without authority. And when a civil magistrate uses his power to do things he doesn't have authority to do, then we say he's being a tyrant. But you can have power to do something, doesn't necessarily mean you have authority to do it.

We have the ability to do a lot of things that we don't have the authority to do and when we don't have authority to do something, we don't have a right to do it, even if we have the power to do it. You can also have, it's possible to have authority to do something, but no power to do it. If you're a, you might be a general, you have authority to command troops in battle, but if you don't have an army that is capable of doing, taking a certain position, then you don't have the power to do it, even though you have the authority to do it. The courts have authority over the parties that are in front of them to issue commands, but they don't have the power to carry out those commands. They have to depend on another branch of government that has the power to carry out, to execute the law.

So authority and power are two different things. And Jesus here in this commission gives the disciples both authority and power over the demons to cast out demons and to cure diseases. Now God did this sovereignly. He sovereignly commissioned these messengers with power and authority. You notice they didn't come to Him and ask Him, can we have this power?

Can we have this authority? Lord, can we go do what You're doing? They didn't come and ask Him that. He rather called them and gave it to them. They didn't seek it through prayer and fasting or other spiritual disciplines.

No, God sovereignly called them and gave it to them. God commissioned them with His authority and His power to do His work. Power to do His work. This means that those who rejected them Because they came in Christ's name, because they came in His authority and with His power, those who rejected, these were rejecting Christ. There's nothing in their persons that has any of these attributes.

They've been given, they've been given them by Christ. And so they speak in His name, they speak with His authority, they work with His power. And Jesus said that those who ever will not receive you when you go out of that city shake the dust from your very feet as a testimony against them. Is it such a great thing to reject a person? To reject me?

No. But they weren't just rejecting Peter and James and John as people. They were rejecting the disciples as God's messengers and in so doing they were rejecting God himself. And so God said to leave, they were to leave a testimony against that city by shaking the very dust off their feet. Paul and Barnabas did this at Antioch of Pisidia when their message was rejected.

They too were commissioned by God as apostles, or Paul was an apostle. He was sent out with this message and when it was rejected at Antioch, he shook the dust off of his feet. And In the other parallel accounts in Matthew and in Mark, we read Jesus says that it's going to be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the Day of Judgment than for these cities that reject God's messengers. Because to whom more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, because they did not have the blessing of this message. They didn't have the blessing of God sending a messenger to them with pointing out to them the way of light and life.

They didn't have that blessing. And so to whom much is given, much is expected. If you've been given a lot, if you've been raised in a Christian home, if you've heard the word of God from your youth, if you've known the path of truth, then much more is expected of you than someone who hasn't had all those blessings. And that's why Jesus very clearly says that it's going to be more tolerable for this very wicked city. A city that was so wicked that God overthrew it with fire and brimstone, burned it up.

It was an abomination to him. But he says it's going to be more tolerable, more tolerable for these cities than for the cities of Jerusalem, or the cities of the Jews that reject this message and these messengers, to whom much is given, Much is expected. Now they were to preach only to the Jews. Mark tells us that they had a special commission to go only to the lost house of Israel. This is, you might say, one more sign of compassion that Jesus had for them.

You know, He lifted up His eyes as He was being, at the time of His crucifixion, upon Jerusalem and wept because they had rejected the prophets, because of the judgment that was coming upon them for their sin. He had compassion for these people and sending out the disciples one more time to the very cities that he had been preaching and this is where he's been ministering the last one to two years. He sends these disciples out again to give them one more chance, to give them one more opportunity to repent, to hear the truth and to turn from the error of their ways and to receive him. And so they go out. Now notice They go out with the authority and the power to cast out demons, to heal diseases, and to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

They have authority and power to do what Jesus had been doing. But you notice that faith is not a prerequisite for having this power and this authority. Faith is not a prerequisite. Now why do I say that? Because He's sending out the twelve here.

He calls the twelve and he sends them out and Mark says he sends them out two by two. So they're all getting, and it's not just a crowd of twelve and going and one is preaching, they're two by two and they're to go into all these towns and cities and each pair is to preach so that they would get a lot more experience individually preaching and casting out demons and healing the sick. But Who's among this twelve? Remember Judas, the son of Perdition, is also among the twelve. And he also is one of these pair that went out, one of a pair that went out.

And he's doing these things. He's preaching the gospel of the kingdom. He's casting out demons and healing the sick. You see, some people would say today that the only reason people are not healed is that they don't have enough faith. Or that the reason people can't heal like this today is because they don't have enough faith.

But that contradicts this passage where Judas who is lost is doing these things. What happens, you see, then, if it turns out that a shepherd who has been preaching the gospel for many years and baptizing people turns out not to have been saved. That these sort of things happen because we don't know the heart. And there are many people who were great evangelists and have since fallen from the faith and claim not to believe in God at all. Billy Graham's mentor, the one he was seeking to emulate and follow, the one he learned from, when he died, wrote a book, said, why I don't believe in God.

Today there is somebody who is a prolific writer who claims to be an agnostic, who is a seminary professor who at one time was a zealous navigator going door-to-door evangelizing people. He evangelized his family. They were all saved as a result of his zeal and his preaching the kingdom of God to his family. But then he went to unbelieving seminaries and apostatized, turned away from the faith, and now writes books refuting the Bible as a seminary professor, an openly avowed agnostic and atheist teaching in seminary. What about all the people that he preached to?

What about the message that he at one time preached? What about all the people that somebody like this has baptized? Does that mean that their message that they preached is now invalid? Does that mean that those people they preach to aren't saved or somehow got an inferior salvation or inferior faith? Or the people that are baptized, do they have to be rebaptized?

Well, no, because faith is not a prerequisite. It is Christ that saves. And if you save someone, they're saved regardless of the messenger that God used to bring them to salvation. Regardless of the messenger that God used to bring them to salvation. Regardless of the messenger that God used for them to hear the Word of God.

God's Word can come through people that aren't regenerate. He's able to build his kingdom even through that. He can even speak through a donkey and he has. Balaam is a good example of a prophet through whom God spoke but Peter says about him and other false prophets like him that they have forsaken the right way and gone astray following the way of Balaam the son of Beor who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Balaam was this prophet who spoke God's word.

Saul was another example of somebody who prophesied by the Spirit of the Lord. He was among the prophets, but he wasn't a regenerate person. In Matthew 25, Jesus told about the judgment day. Remember, there are gonna be the sheep and the goats. And he's gonna say to the goats, "'Depart from me, I never knew you.'" And they'll say, "'Lord, but Lord, we prophesied in your name.

"'We cast out demons. "'We did all these wonderful things in your name. And Jesus will say to them, depart from me. I never knew you. You see, Faith is not a necessary prerequisite for these, to exercise these gifts in these powers.

Unlike some of the Prentacostal persuasion would tell us. God sovereignly gives this to whomever he will. And he chose in this case to give it to Judas Iscariot who would later betray him. And then having remorse for that would go out and hang himself. Never coming to repentance.

Now these signs that Jesus gives them are very closely tied to the preaching of the Word. The two go together. The signs were not done simply to draw the crowd. The signs weren't done to hold people's interest. The signs were done to authenticate the message.

Whenever God has sent His prophets, we see that He gives them signs to authenticate their prophetic message. When God sent Moses to Pharaoh, God gave him signs to authenticate him as a messenger and the message that he brought. When God sent the prophets like Elijah and Elisha, he gave them authority that are done in our acts of compassion. Now, there's one more thing about this commission that I would like to point out, and that is that these apostles, that's what they are now, they have been sent and commissioned, they are to depend on those to whom they minister for support. Their support is to come from the people that they are preaching to.

Jesus tells them specifically, take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money, and do not have two tunics apiece. And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. And whoever will not receive you, then when you go out from that city, shake the dust off your feet." Now there's some discussion because if you read the other accounts, Mark says to take a staff and Matthew says not to wear sandals. Mark says to wear them and Luke doesn't mention them. But I think this is easily resolved when we just look at what the text says.

You notice here it says, don't take staffs, plural. Don't take staffs, plural. And it says, do not have two tunics a piece. We obviously do have a tunic. One, you're not to have two.

And so Matthew, Mark's saying to take a staff, that's singular, take a staff. That was part of your traveling attire. But Luke is here saying, Jesus said, don't take extra, don't take more than, Don't take staffs, plow, and don't take tunics, and don't take sandals. Matthew says, don't take sandals, meaning in the plural. But they were to wear sandals, Mark says, wear sandals.

And Mark says to take a staff. Just don't take it back up. And don't take a bag, and don't take money, Don't take bread. Why? Because all these things will be provided for you.

God will provide, but He will provide through those to whom you are ministering. And so when you go to a place, you need to Find a worthy home. Find a home that receives this message and you're to stay there and don't move around. In other words, if the first place that you come to, the worthy home, they receive you, they offer hospitality to you, then go in. But if it's a poor home and you later come across a wealthy home and they receive it, you're not to go stay in the wealthy home because it's a nicer place.

You're going to get better food and a nicer bed. Jesus says very specifically, stay where you go. When you enter, stay there. And the other accounts are even more explicit about when you are to leave that city from the same house that you first stayed with. In other words, they're not to hop around looking for the best place to stay.

They're to stay wherever the first place was that received them. And what if there was a personality conflict in that first home? What if there were some challenges? That means they're going to have to work through those. They're going to have to work through those personality conflicts.

They're going to have to, by the power of the Holy Spirit, resolve those and not just run away from them and leave an unsolved problem. You know, the grace of God is powerful. And Jesus' heals can bring reconciliation to these relationships. So they were to stay there. However long they were in that city preaching and teaching, they were to stay in that home.

They were to receive from that home their food and their needs because the labor is worthy of his hire. And also Jesus is teaching them to trust in him to provide for all of their needs. Now he changes this later on. They weren't to take a sword and so on. Later on he says they were to take these things.

They were to be prepared. Jesus told this parable of the virgins, five wise and five foolish. And the foolish were foolish because they didn't take extras along. But in this particular case Jesus gives them directions that are unique to this situation that they were to take none of these things. He's teaching them to learn to do their work without a lot of support, without just relying on the Lord to provide for their needs.

Paul said, in whatever circumstance I have found myself, I have learned to be content, whether in want or in plenty, whether things are in abundance or in a lack of things. And so Jesus is teaching the disciples here to be content, to learn to be content in whatever circumstance they find themselves, whether it's an abundance or not. So they're not to take all these things along with them that you might otherwise wisely take with you if you were going on a journey. And so they go and they do this work that Jesus called them to do. They continue his work.

And in doing this, we see then that God's kingdom is now beginning to grow in an exponential way. Jesus has just duplicated himself six times. And where you have one person going around preaching and healing, now you have six more people in addition to Jesus going around preaching and healing. And Jesus had said to his disciples that they would do greater works than He did. And I think this is what He was referring to.

When Jesus came to earth, when He took upon Himself human flesh, He took to Himself the limitations of a human body. Jesus is God. He is everywhere present throughout creation. It doesn't mean that part of Him is here and a part of Him is there. It means that He in His entirety is present everywhere throughout his creation.

He knows all things. He never sleeps. He never is need needs anything. He never is hungry. But when Jesus became incarnate, when he took to himself two natures and took a human nature.

Then he also, in addition to his divine nature, which is everywhere present throughout the earth, he also took a human nature that is not everywhere present because a human body can only be at one place. And so Christ respects his human nature is only in one place. He only had one mouth and he only could speak in one place to one group of people. At the same time though in his divine nature he is still everywhere present he still knows all things he still respects his divine nature doesn't need to eat or sleep but as respects his human nature he does and so These two things are combined in one person in a mystery that we cannot comprehend. But the Bible says that that's who Jesus is.

And so we believe it. But Jesus, in saying that the disciples would do greater works than he did, I think he is speaking in one aspect of the fact that there are more of them. And so they could preach in more places at once than he and his human body could do. And now that he has ascended those, he has raised up messengers all over the earth. And so we see that there are today, there are thousands and probably millions of people who are who are preaching the kingdom and the gospel and so in that sense in that very physical sense his disciples are doing greater works than what he did.

Jesus is now dwells with us. And Paul said that the life that he lived in the flesh, he lived by faith in the Son of God. And that it was no longer he who worked, but Christ worked in him. The work that he did was Christ working in him. And so this then is the very first next step in the expansion of this kingdom.

This kingdom that Jesus said would grow and fill the whole earth like a starting out like a great little mustard seed would grow and fill the whole earth. This is the first step of the expansion of that kingdom as Jesus commissions these apostles and sends them out to preach and to heal. His kingdom has begun to grow and it is still growing, brothers and sisters. It is still growing today. It doesn't matter what we see around us, it doesn't matter what people tell us.

The word of God is true, it endures forever. God's kingdom will grow. And there is nothing that will stop it. There is nothing that will stand before it. Even the very gates of hell will not prevail against his church.

So this kingdom that began to grow in a tangible way is still growing today. And you and I are a part of it. And for that we can, for that we ought to rejoice and give thanks. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we do give thanks to you for writing our names in your book of life, for bringing a healing to us, for providing a sacrifice for our sin, for making us your children with the rights and privileges of the sons of God.

For all those, Lord, that you have called, you will justify. And those that you have justified, you will glorify. And so Lord, this is our hope. Not a bare conjecture, but a sure and certain hope, founded upon sure and certain promises, founded upon you, the one who is all-powerful and all-knowing. Lord, we ask that you would fill us with this hope, that we may walk in this hope, that we may work in this hope, That we may not count our own life dear.

That Lord your kingdom may grow. Lord please send us, please use us, Please take away our fears and give to us a boldness and give to us a zeal for your kingdom That we no longer count the pleasures of this life or even our life as dear, but rather Lord may our labor, May our work be the advancement of your kingdom and your glory, that your will might be done here on earth even as it is done in heaven. In Jesus' name we ask, in your name alone we dare to ask. Amen.