(This is the sermon I gave at Huntley Community Covenant Church on May 10, 2026.)
One of the reasons I love coming here to speak the word of the LORD to you is, well – that you let me– but more importantly, I love that you are already disciples.
You are already following Jesus, so I don’t have to stand up here and lead you through a Sunday School lesson everybody has already heard before. Now, there’s nothing wrong with John 3:16 and 17, but (as the apostle Paul notes) there are spiritual babes who can tolerate nothing more than spiritual milk, and there are those who are ready for spiritual meat.
I’m a big fan of spiritual meat.
Which brings us to the state of the modern church. All throughout modern Christendom, it’s very trendy and a great focus among Church leaders to talk about and “be intentional” about discipleship. We are all VERY intent on discipleship – and that’s a good thing, right? Because, what is a disciple? Right! A disciple is someone who follows Jesus.
It took me a long time to realize that following Jesus should be the focus of my life. See, because when you follow Jesus, that naturally makes Him the leader. That puts Him in front and me behind. Things get much, much easier when Jesus is in charge of my life instead of me being in charge, because when I am in charge, my life’s priorities end up being things like money, and cars, and food, and all sorts of things that are temporary instead of eternal.
No, Jesus you go ahead and lead. It’s a lot easier to follow. It’s a lot easier to learn from back here where I belong. And there’s another important point – a disciple is someone who learns from the Master. It took me a long time to learn I do not know everything. In fact, there’s a lot more I don’t know than I do know. Paul even writes in Romans 12:3
“Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.”
Nope, I am a finite man – and that gets a lot easier to live with when you let Jesus be the King He really is: KING of KINGS and LORD of LORDS, right? AMEN!
But, while it’s absolutely true the Church should be filled, even swarming with dedicated disciples, at some point those disciples should graduate from their apprenticeship and graduate on to something greater. After all, Jesus didn’t spend His whole ministry teaching the disciples to be disciples. He had a plan, a purpose, a goal.
Gee, I wonder what that could have been?
What do you suppose Jesus wanted that band of rag-tag, thick-skulled, common working guy, not-getting-it, dirt-under-their-fingernails kind of guys to eventually become?
Do you suppose there could be a clue in what He told them just before He left?
Matthew 28:18-20.
Then 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 all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
He told them to be missionaries!
Yes, yes, I absolutely came to this conclusion based on the fact that I am a missionary, but look at the verse! Go into the nations, make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to obey all His commands!
Not only does that sure sound like a description of missionaries to me, they went out and did it!
Thomas, that’s right Old Doubting Thomas, walked over 4,000 miles traveling to India via Iran! Peter preached in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia before travelling to Rome. Mark travelled to Egypt and founded the first churches there. Andrew went to the Black Sea region, Matthew to Ethiopia or Persia, and Philip to Asia Minor. And Paul, that guy completed three major missionary journeys and a final trip to Rome, covering roughly 9,150–15,500 miles total. His journeys took him through present-day Israel, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy.
These guys gave up everything to walk to the very ends of the earth. They went everywhere and they could not and would not stop!
And ALL but one of them died a martyr’s death: James (Son of Zebedee and the first one to die) was beheaded by Herod Agrippa I in Jerusalem (Acts 12:2). Peter was crucified upside down in Rome, believing he was unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus. Andrew was crucified on an X-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. Because Paul was a Roman citizen, they could not crucify him, so they just chopped his head off. Philip is believed to have been crucified in Hierapolis, Asia Minor. Bartholomew (Nathanael) is said to have been flayed alive and beheaded in Armenia. Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India. Matthew is believed to have been killed by a sword or spear in Ethiopia. James (Son of Alphaeus) is believed to have been stoned or clubbed to death. Simon the Zealot is reported to have either been crucified or sawed in half in Persia.Thaddeus (Jude) was killed with arrows in Persia, and Matthias (the replacement for Judas, was stoned and then beheaded.
Only John was thought to have died a natural death, but only after they tried boiling him in oil and he survived! They couldn’t kill him, so they exiled him to the island of Patmos.
They were restless, relentless, reckless in preaching the Gospel.
And I use that word “reckless” on purpose. It came up during a work meeting on Tuesday, and the more I thought about it, the more it became obvious the early church was totally reckless.
Remember Stephen, the first martyr? The guy is accused of blasphemy (Sound familiar?) by the Sanhedrin big shots, and they ask him to defend himself. He launches into this huge, lengthy detail of the history of the Jewish faith and then looks these guys in the face and says in Acts 7:51-53:
“You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.” (NLT)
The Jewish leaders were absolutely infuriated by this, shook their fists at him, covered their ears, dragged him away, and killed him by stoning him.
Remember how John the Baptist called the Pharisees and the Sadducees a brood of vipers and preached that king Herod was sinning by having married his brother’s wife? We all know how that turned out.
And that Peter guy? Jesus specifically picked a reckless guy to lead His church. Who was it that thought he could walk on water and stepped out of the boat while the other eleven were sitting there with their mouths hanging open? Who cut some guy’s ear off in Gethsemane? (Okay, maybe a little too reckless there.) But, on the day of Pentecost, when all the disciples were speaking in tongues and praising God and the crowd didn’t know what was going on, it was Peter who stood up, and in a loud voice explained God’s plan and proclaimed in Acts 2:36 - 38.
“So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
After that speech, 3,000 people joined the church and were baptized in one day.
Peter and the apostles then go about preaching Jesus in the temple, and people are coming from everywhere to hear and be healed. Acts 5:15-16 says, “As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by. Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed.”
This fills the high priest and his officials with jealousy, so they chuck the apostles in jail, but an angel lets them out and tells them to go preach in the Temple at daybreak! The high priest and the other big shots all get together to put the apostles on trial, but when they call for the apostles to be brought to them, all they have is an empty jail! They have no idea what’s going on and then someone tells them the apostles are standing in the Temple preaching about Jesus – in absolute and direct defiance of what the big shots had told them. Then, (Acts 5:26-32)
“The captain went with his Temple guards and arrested the apostles, but without violence, for they were afraid the people would stone them. Then they brought the apostles before the high council, where the high priest confronted them. “We gave you strict orders never again to teach in this man’s name!” he said. “Instead, you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching about him, and you want to make us responsible for his death!”
But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on a cross. Then God put him in the place of honor at his right hand as Prince and Savior. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins and be forgiven. We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, who is given by God to those who obey him.”
I can see Peter pointing his finger at them – “... after YOU killed Him by hanging Him on a cross!”
Fearless. Relentless. Absolutely reckless.
Yes, the big shots wanted to kill them, but God intervened through the words of a man named Gamaliel.They were flogged after this but they never relented.
Certainly, they were emboldened and empowered by the Holy Spirit, but that same Holy Spirit lives in you!
And, I have to believe they remembered that same courage and bravery they had seen in Jesus who openly challenged the Pharisees again and again. Jesus was so reckless in His confrontations with the religious leaders I’m sure it seemed at the time He was practically begging them to kill him.
All of Matthew 23 is Jesus railing against the Pharisees. In verses 29 - 33 He says,
“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’ But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?”
And then there’s that whole thing with making a whip and turning over the tables, which is described in all four Gospels.
Oh, and what about the deal with drinking His blood, loving your enemies, healing on the Sabbath, paying your taxes, etc., etc., etc.
Radical, reckless stuff indeed.
And, really, I’ve just scratched the surface of recklessness here.
Now, let us be absolutely clear. God is not reckless.
Wait a minute. Didn’t I just give you a whole pile of examples of Jesus and the disciples BEING reckless?
When the song, “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury came out, there were people who got all offended and said, “You can’t say that. God’s not reckless. Heretic!”
Well, Asbury never said God was reckless. He said God’s love was reckless. He said it was the kind of love that was overwhelming, never-ending –the kind of love that leaves the 99 to go rescue the one lost sheep. If I went to the Stewardship Committee of some churches and proposed some program that ignored 99% of the congregation to save one percent, they’d have a hissy fit.
But God’s love is that reckless. As Asbury says, there’s no shadow He won’t light up, no mountain He won’t climb up, no wall he won’t kick down, no lie He won’t tear down – and He’s coming after you! It’s THAT kind of love.
Restless, relentless, reckless.
Here’s what Paul said about describing the love of God in Ephesians 3:18-19a:
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.
Not only is God’s love beyond our ability to fully express in words, it’s beyond our ability to fully comprehend!
God is infinite, which means all of His attributes are infinite, which means God and all of His attributes are beyond our ability to fully understand and therefore express in words!
And furthermore, it’s impossible for God to be reckless because His knowledge is also infinite! God’s omniscience means He knows the outcome of whatever He does before He does it, so He cannot BE reckless!
The very definition of reckless is “behavior characterized by a willful disregard for danger, consequences, or outcomes.” God KNOWS the outcome!
(By the way, and because it’s Mother’s Day, if you want to see a definition of “reckless” do something that threatens a child in the presence of that child’s mother. There will be some wrecking going on and it will not be pretty.)
But, getting back to the LORD, His love can certainly APPEAR reckless to us when judged by beings who are NOT omniscient!
Are the light bulbs coming on folks?
Even Satan didn’t see the outcome of Christ’s provocative, even incendiary behavior before the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin, Herod, and even Pilate that led Him to recklessly die on that cross for us!
What looked reckless to us was all part of God’s plan from the beginning!
It WAS absolutely reckless – until the moment He stepped out of that tomb.
At that moment in time, reckless changed to victorious.
So, am I standing up here and advocating you all go out and do your best to get yourselves killed by preaching the gospel?
Nope.
I don’t think anyone in the room has been told by the Holy Spirit that they have been called to be a martyr. I haven’t. (Yet.)
But I have been called to be a missionary. And so have you. You put it right on your wall right beside the door, “Welcome to the mission field.”
You already get it.
And, you know as it turns out, I AM going to preach John 3:16-17:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
The word “world” shows up in those two verses five times, and if we count “whoever” (as in all the people in the world) that’s six.
The world is our mission field. It’s everybody everywhere.
What I am saying, fellow missionaries, is that the next time you see some young lady sitting on a bench in the airport crying or a tattooed guy pulling two dollars worth of scrap metal out of a dumpster, and one voice in your head says, “I should go talk to that person,” but the other voice in your head says, “Mmmmmm I dunno…” remember those reckless apostles.
Remember your reckless Savior.
Yes, you could mess up. You could say the wrong thing. You could be embarrassed. (Oh no!)
But (as long as you don’t cut some guy’s ear off) in this country you’re not going to end up in some frozen gulag eating moldy bread and borscht the rest of your life.
You might even take a risk and go on a mission trip. I think I know someone who could maybe arrange that for you.
And, no matter how reckless you are, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to end up crucified upside down, sawn in half, or boiled in oil.
I guarantee the rewards of that reckless love far exceed the risks.
(Thanks to Barb Meister for the inspiration for this piece. Image depicts Christ healing the ear of Malchus.)
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