A Prophet's Reward

In the New Covenant and the Kingdom,
human beings
and how we relate to God and one another 
are central.
As I have said many, many times,
the God of the Bible is the Most Relational Being in the Universe.
As my friend Steve Seamands has said,
to remove relationship from Christianity
is to go against the grain of the Holy Trinity.

And so,
when we talk about both the Prophet
and the Apostle,
and all the five fold ministries,
we do not talk about specific roles,
gifts or functions.
We talk about human beings.
We talk about people.
And the New Testament,
other than the direction
to test the spirits to see if they acknowledge
that Jesus Christ came in the flesh,
doesn't talk a lot about the prophetic message.
There are not six simple rules to test prophecy.

But the New Testament,
and Jesus especially,
talks a lot about how we receive a prophet and an apostle.
And Jesus tells us
that we will be judged at the end of our lives,
by how we receive the people God sends us.
Whenever we move the focus to people
suddenly the question of honor also becomes central.

Often Matthew 10:41 is quoted out of context:
"those who receive a prophet in the name of a prophet
will receive a prophet's reward."
Context is everything.

I want to look at the context of this verse in Matthew 10 and 11
and unpack it a bit,
because there is some really good direction for those who walk in the 
prophetic and apostolic calling,
and also some direction for those who have experienced rejection.

If you turn in your Bible to Matthew 9:35 
this is where the context begins,
Jesus goes about teaching and preaching and healing every sickness and disease.
He is moved with compassion for them,
for they are like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he prays that the Lord of the Harvest 
would send labourers into the harvest.
So right here,
we see that Jesus recognizes the work is too big for him alone.
When God sees a problem,
God provides a solution.
And throughout the Bible the solution is always a person.
As Jim Leach has said,
"human beings are the technology
created by God to contain God,"
so if God wants to get into a situation
God will get there through a person.

And in this case,
Beginning in Matthew 10:1
Jesus calls the Twelve to himself,
gives them power to do the things he did,
and gives them direction.
The Twelve are the technology God is using.

In Luke's gospel,
it says that Jesus called them "Apostles" at this point.
Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience,
so he uses Jewish language,
and they are more or less referred to as prophets.
So right here we see this the interrelated nature of the apostle and prophet.

I am going to skip the details for a moment
and focus on Matthew 10:30,
because it highlights the core of what we have already said
about being an artistic prophet or apostle.
Jesus tells them,
"For it is not you who speaks,
but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you."

Remember I said that the Apostle is like an ambassador of the Kingdom.
Just like if I go to the American Embassy in London,
once I am inside it is the United States,
and the diplomats I meet are like talking to the President and the Congress.
Apostles are representatives with the diplomatic immunity of the Kingdom.

And if I am a prophet,
I am speaking on behalf of the Father.
Honestly, 
I think most of the prophetic nonsense out there
would disappear
if more "prophetic" people had a sober understanding that they
are called to only say what the Father is saying.
Jesus is saying here
that when a prophet or apostle goes somewhere
they are his representatives in that place.

So the Prophet speaks for the Father,
and the Apostle is the physical representative of Jesus.
Once we establish this,
we can look at the whole passage,
and we see that they way someone receives a prophet
and an apostle
is really
the way that person receives God.

And then Jesus 
says 
it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah 
on the day of judgement than for the cities that reject you.

Jesus says similar things to the Pharisees
and over Jerusalem.
How prophets and apostles are received 
has eternal consequences.
Why?
Because these two groups of people
represent Jesus.
If you reject his representatives
you reject him.

In the Kingdom,
everything is always personal.
This is why a lot of theology is a mirage.
When you bring it back to Jesus,
and the Incarnation,
and the fact that the Five-fold ministry is about the Incarnation,
and that artistic apostles and prophets
are Incarnations of Jesus,
it is all very clear.
If you reject a prophet
and an apostle
you are rejecting Jesus.

And Jesus says this clearly Matthew 10:40:
He that receives you
receives me,
and he that receives me
receives Him who sent me.

We hear this same kind of language in John seventeen:
that they might be one,
just as you Father are one with me
so that the world may know that they are my disciples.
It's the same idea.

And then finally:
If you receive a prophet
in the name of a prophet
you will receive a prophet's reward.

So to sum this all up
Jesus calls and creates these representatives:
prophets and apostles,
and he gives them the abilities to represent himself.
They are incarnations of the Incarnation.
They are performance artists,
acting out and revealing the Kingdom of Heaven 
into the earth.
And then Jesus says
how people treat me
is how they will treat you.
And he goes into a lot of descriptions.
This is part of taking up your cross and following him.
And then,
Jesus says,
those who receive you will be rewarded.
So people will be judged
negatively or positively 
by how they treat an apostle or prophet.

And then,
Matthew tells us how we can recognize a prophet or an apostle.
John the Baptist is in prison.
He is the last of the Old Testament prophets,
and he is hearing about what Jesus and the Twelve are doing.
So he sends some of his followers to Jesus
and asks, are you the one we are waiting for?

And Jesus responds
the blind see,
the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the gospel preached to them.
And blessed is he who is not offended by me.

So through examples,
Jesus says to John:
"John,
judge a tree by its fruit.
I'm bearing good fruit
and it's the fruit promised that the Messiah would bear."

So the first key to responding to a prophet or apostle is 
what fruit do they bear?
Notice Jesus did not say,
I have a the right endorsement from another ministry.
I am the right denomination.
I have the right CV.
I have the right credentials.
I am in Apostolic succession.
I have all the trappings but no fruit.
No.
Jesus said,
judge me by my fruit.
Jesus said to judge me by my fruit.
Jesus said this.
And a servant is not above his master.

And then Jesus says,
blessed are those who are not offended by me.
My guess is
that even John,
who was the greatest prophet before Jesus,
may have been a bit offended.
Jesus is out at parties.
Jesus is not a hermit or ascetic.
Jesus is hanging out with prostitutes and sinners.
Jesus is embracing life in its fullness while John is in prison.

An interesting thing about the Lord
is that he doesn't judge like in the comic strips.
God lets people self-sort.
I have seen this again and again,
and this is what is happening in our day.
People are choosing sides,
deciding their eternal destinies,
without God even doing a thing.
God has given sovereignty to man in the earth,
and so God will let human beings choose their own destiny.

I've had a few redefining moments recently.
Last year in Israel
I had a very difficult trip where 
almost everyone on the trip 
treated me somewhat badly.
Toward the end of the trip,
at the altar of Melchizedek,
the Holy Spirit spoke to me very strongly
and told me to give someone a word.
And it was one of those heavy,
serious words.
And this person
took great offense that I interrupted her worship,
and wouldn't let me give her the word.
And then she said,
"I have had enough,
and I'm not going to put up with you today."
She made it personal.
And it was clear
that through the trip,
the feeling I had was clear,
the folks in the group had rejected me.
And it was a weird spiritual thing.
Robin Williams once said,
"It's one thing to feel alone,
and another to be in a room full of people
who make you feel alone."
This really is part of taking up your cross behind Jesus.
It's not you.

There are a few other people in my life
where this has happened,
and my presence,
without me saying or doing a thing
brings a reaction.

And I have mentioned that God has sent a number of unusual people to me,
and when he does,
you have to really listen to God,
because
often God will use an offensive person
to test our hearts.
In those moments,
you have to ask God to give you 
the ability to see the way he sees.
And you have to judge the tree by its fruit.
And when you do this,
often God will bless you.
I've mentioned the women who came to me in Salem,
but I have had many encounters with wild looking folks
who were true prophets of God,
who gave me words
or met a need at a critical time.

And all of this leads us to this point:
What do you do with rejection?
I have a situation right now
where a person in my life is not walking with Jesus
and he is rejecting me.
It's been a hard situation.
Jesus said that if a city doesn't receive you,
shake the dust off your feet.
In other words,
you let go.
You do not have to make everyone like you,
and you do not have to convince or change someone else.
This is where a lot of "ministry" stuff is misguided.
You cannot change someone else,
through prayer or any other means.
You have to let them go.
Shake the dust off your feet.
They self-sorted.
As I have said many times,
it's not about you or your ministry.
It's about Jesus.
You are the performance artist
carrying the message of the Kingdom
re-enacting Jesus in front of them.
The person
and how they receive you
doesn't have a problem with you,
they have a problem with Jesus.
And when you do this,
something really interesting happens.
You are free from them,
and often you are free to let the grace flow.
Wow.

Rejection hurts but it does not have to be a poison that goes in.