The Covenant of the 70 Workers to Save the Church and the Field (Matt. 28:18-20)
The words of Matthew 28:18-20 tell us, what do the church officers and young adults have to have as their goal? They need to hold onto the biblical covenant of the 70 workers. That is the reason for which you have been called as a church officer and leader of remnants. It is not a matter of whether something is taking place or not; I have to hold onto what God desires.
If it’s something I want, I’m just holding onto my level, but what is it that God has called me for? What does God want? After Jesus Christ resurrected, He spoke about the Kingdom of God for 40 days, giving missions to His disciples, and this was the mission given to Matthew. There were about 150 people who gathered on the Mount of Olives after Jesus’ resurrection. Some people say 120 people. But either way, it’s the apostles and the 70 workers who received the mission.
What does this have to do with me? What does this Word of God have to do with me? This is a person who receives answers. But if God gives us the Word one way and we keep trying to use it and understand it, centered on ourselves, then this person will be used by Satan because we keep trying to live according to our level.
The fact that you’ve received Jesus Christ means you’re a new creation, and the background in which you lived doesn’t matter. Peter was a fisherman and others were thieves. These were unpopular and uneducated people but God gave them the greatest positions. Go and make disciples of all nations? Does that even make sense? How is it that this person was a tax collector for the Roman government? He would take money from the Jews and give it to the Romans and all the Jews hated him, pointing their fingers at him and calling him a traitor.
Peter was uneducated his entire life, he was just a fisherman, and then he was called. God did not give this mission to the people of the greatest education of the age. But if Peter were to think, “I’m so uneducated, all I know is fish, how could God give me such a big mission,” that person is not right either. How should we be?
“I’ve completely changed because of Christ, I’m no longer myself. I’m someone who will hold onto and fulfill this mission,” then the power to fulfill that mission will follow you. How do you think now? With what thoughts will you begin 2022? Are you perhaps hoping to catch a few fish or remodel your house? Or let’s say you’re a tax collector like this disciple, “How can I be a good government worker and get a better car for myself”? That’s not aligned with God. God says, “Make disciples of all nations,” only that person will receive answers and God’s power will follow them.
God has given this tremendous blessing to each of us. Therefore, the lay people of the church, the church officers, and the remnant leaders must hold to the covenant that, “I must be the 70 workers.” What must you do then? You have to know in order to teach someone else. It says here, go and make disciples of all nations, establishing them in the church by baptizing them in the word of the pulpit message, and “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you,” that’s evangelism, then you commission them out to save their fields. Those people go into their fields, bringing back disciples to establish them in the church, and commission them out again. This is how God’s Word is fulfilled.
Am I able to teach someone else right now? You have to be able to teach someone else in order to play the role of the 70 workers. Can I properly explain the gospel to others? If you’re not able to, you should learn because God gave you the covenant of the 70 workers. Am I following the stream of God’s Word? Am I, every single day, within the Word, prayer, and evangelism of today? Or, am I within my thoughts, my plan, and my power? We have to change that, and that’s how we will raise disciples, establish them in the church, and commission them to the field. This is the work the church does.
Yes, the church is a place to gather, to eat and fellowship, but the main core is this. First and foremost, what is the gospel? This gospel is misunderstood. The gospel has finished all problems but people have never heard that. They’ve heard of Christ but they’ve never heard that the gospel solved all their problems. They’ve heard a lot of foolish words and their lives aren’t finished yet, so they think they have to finish their own lives with hard work and volunteering.
If your life hasn’t been finished for you yet, you have to wait until it’s finished. Through the 66 books of God’s Bible, you have to confirm that it’s finished because you’ve met Jesus, and once you’ve met the resurrected Jesus, your life is finished. Before that point, your life wasn’t finished, you were always worried about what others thought. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, all the disciples ran away; it wasn’t finished for them. They did believe in Jesus Christ, but their lives weren’t finished with that, et, and that’s why they ran away depending on the circumstances, ;they weren’t able to overcome the circumstances even though they knew and believed in Jesus.
When the environment gets difficult, they run away, and then they all saw JEsus Christ being crucified on the cross, and Peter had a little more righteousness, so he ran away last, but all the other disciples ran away when they heard Jesus was arrested. They all believed in Jesus, that He was the Messiah, but it wasn’t finished for them yet. When was it finished? Their life was finished as they met the resurrected Lord.
If someone hasn’t gotten to this point, you have to. If you haven’t gotten to this point and you keep trying to do other things, you’ll keep getting beat up and caught by Satan. But if you have gotten to this point, then your life is finished. The one who is very certain about this gospel must relay it to others.
Before it was finished, Jesus Christ told His disciples to not tell anyone about this. In Matthew 16, Jesus Christ says, “Don’t tell anyone that I’m the Christ” because the gospel hadn’t been complete yet, why? Because their life problems weren’t finished yet, and the Lord knew that. That’s why after Jesus Christ died on the cross and resurrected, then He said, “It is finished.” The Christ Who is living right now.
He’s living right now but it’s a problem for me because I don’t believe that. This problem, that problem, is the Lord alive? Beyond the Lord being alive, is He alive within me? Only the one who believes in that can enjoy the gospel. Everyone has their time schedule, and even when you’re working, you have to work, following the time schedule. These are the people whom God called to give them the mission.
God gives the church officers a mission. As 70 workers, you do this and that. Until that point, Jesus Christ told them to keep their mouths shut until it was finished. If everything hasn’t been finished for you yet, but you’re flying around, very busy, it’s going to be more of a headache because you’re going to fall into a problem and speak a lot of nonsense words there. You’re going to make excuses, “It’s not my problem; it’s that person’s problem,” but for a person for whom everything is finished, it’s not a problem at all. But if it has not been finished for you and you keep running around, you’ll keep facing problems. It doesn’t matter if you’ve believed for a short or long time, whether you’re old or young.
If you don’t have this, it’s just pollution. You have to have everything finished. Starting from next year, if there’s anything you want to do, just tell me. “Starting next year, I want to devote myself for this,” I hope you will tell me. I said the same thing last year and only one person came up to me and said anything; everyone else is just kind of shuffling their feet. I’m sure they did it on their own but one person with a can-do attitude said, “This year I will devote myself to this,” and they did it. They did a very good job throughout the year and still are doing a good job.
The door is always open to any person of the Lord who wants to devote or serve or help the part of the church according to the faith and time schedule. If you don’t come to me, I won’t give you anything to do, whether it turns out well or for the worse, I will leave you alone, but if people who had roles in the past want to maintain them, that’s fine. If someone says, “I hate eating in the church,” don’t eat, but if someone likes to eat in the church, they can eat. “I don’t want to eat, why is everyone else eating?” you shouldn’t say words like that. It hasn’t been finished for you.
Our church is going to do missions in the future, and if you don’t have a heart for missions, you don’t have to give to that. We have to help them so that those who actually want to do it will do it. What kind of churches are like this? It seems like there’s no structure or organization but there actually is. It seems very free and liberating, but if you don’t receive the answer, don’t do it. But if someone says they’ll do it anyway, then do it. But if you fall over, don’t say anything about it; just stay quiet.
Anybody, it doesn’t matter who comes, we must be a church where all people from all nations can come and be okay. But if you say it should be this way and that way, that won’t apply for all nations. Coming here the way you are is the way that’s aligned with all nations. “I look like this, we have to do this this way,” it’s not aligned with anyone else, then. If we play according to how we are, that’s fitting with the 237 nations as long as you’re not centered on yourself.
“I like this kind of soup, and I’ll make this same soup every week because they like it,” don’t be so self-centered. If you play with everyone and center yourself on what they want, that’s good, the life movement will take place. When you come to church, you should be free. You struggle so much with your job and the kids struggle so much at school, and you have a harder time when you come to church, too? No need for that, just go into the gospel and finish everything with the gospel, and everything will change. The life movement.
Until that point, just leave them be, because it’s the 70 workers. The 70 workers, where you can raise up and teach anybody. If you can’t do that, you should learn. You shouldn’t hold onto your strong pride because your pride won’t feed you. If I have been called as the 70 workers, and I don’t have the power to raise up others as the 70 workers, then I have to learn. I learn to teach and to commission them out into the field.
I hope you will receive these answers in 2022. Even if you have a job and you can’t do this, it won’t work out, I’m sorry. Even if your job does work out well, you’re just doing well on your own. It’s not aligned with God, how could that do well in the long run? If something works out well and it’s not aligned with God, that’s an unbeliever. If you’re not aligned with God’s Word and the things you see are going along well, is that actually going along well? Has the devil passed away? In the most critical moment, you will fall from spiritual problems.
“Pastor, you use such threatening words to the point where it feels like we’re not even allowed to move,” but I didn’t go to seminary to threaten you, I’m just telling you what I’ve experienced and I confirmed this in the field. Ultimately, everybody collapses from spiritual problems. They have the Word of God, but things taking place isn’t really taking place. My work must be aligned with God’s Word; what happens if my work and God’s Word aren’t aligned? The branch will only bear fruit when it’s attached to the vine, but if the branch is detached from the vine and bears fruit, that’s fake; that’s the fruit the devil wants to see.
The branch must remain attached to the vine which is the Word of God; my life must be completely in line with the Word of God. The work I’m doing must be connected with missions, evangelism, and the 237 nations. That’s the 70 workers. The 70 workers are not special, they’re just aligned with God. Being aligned with God means that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit and I are one. If I’m not aligned with any part of God, then my life is unnecessary.
A saved child of God must be very sure in this accurate Word of the gospel, the Father God continuously gives you His Word, and that Word He gives me must be aligned with my life and the work I’m doing. Even right now, Christ is doing the ministry of salvation. Not only with me, but even right now, Christ is doing the ministry of salvation. But we’re so stuck in our self-centeredness, we only care about “me” and don’t care about saving others. That’s how I know I’m not aligned with God.
So, that means I’m not aligned with Jesus Christ within the Triune God, because right now, Christ is doing the work of salvation. My work and life must be aligned with that. God the Holy Spirit is giving me power right now. To whom does He give it? The Holy Spirit follows those who are aligned with the Triune God and gives power, but if I’m not aligned with the Triune God, my life is a failure.
The disciples followed Jesus Christ around but their lives still weren’t working out; they only followed Jesus to gain something to eat. Simply put, they were serving idols their whole lives, and they met Jesus Christ but they hadn’t gotten rid of the idols in their heart, so they were always thinking of sitting at the right and left hand of Jesus’ throne. The Lord knew that and said it’s right, but it’s not yet.
After Jesus Christ died on the cross and resurrected, the people gathered to him, but it wasn’t everyone, but it was those who had the answer. There are many people inside the church who have met Jesus Christ but have not yet met the resurrected Lord. Relentlessly they always run away from problems and they’re always fighting for positions, worried about what to eat. That’s normal, even the disciples were like that, and everyone has this kind of time schedule. You must be the kind of person who understands them, gives them the answer, and raises them up.
If you’re not able to understand why they’re being like that, it means you don’t have the answer, either. Once you come to the answer, you’ll see they have no choice but to be like that because the Bible says so. Even the disciples themselves, in today’s words, it’s like if the pastors were like that, too, and they are. If the pastor is able to be like that, then the elders can as well. You have to experience the resurrected Jesus Christ of this gospel.
The church does this as the central core, and as the 70 workers, what mission do I have within and outside of the church? I have to have the content to teach, and I have to learn so I can teach. But if you have such a firm pride, you may ask, “Who am I to be taught?” I’m sorry, that’s futile. You need to receive the blessing of the 70 workers, but you say you want to live at the level of common sense, and it’s because you don’t know pastors yet.
Pastors don’t go to learn anywhere. As soon as they graduate from seminary and are anointed as pastors, they change. It’s true, it doesn’t matter if you’re old or young, and that’s why if there’s not even a single pastor in the church, they will guard the pulpit, but members of the church aren’t like that. If there’s no pastor, they’ll go to another church, but pastors aren’t like that. That’s what God gave pastors, even if they have nothing.
Physically speaking, they have pride; spiritually speaking, they have their God-given mission, then who could teach a pastor? But I’m learning, we hate to learn. Laypeople think this is rightful because they’re used to it, but it’s not the case. Pastors won’t learn from anyone else. They may keep it as reference, but they won’t learn, but we have to lay ourselves down to learn to be personally saved.
If I don’t come to the answer and don’t know my mission, I have to learn this. There was Pastor Kim I served, and he learned from a pastor much younger than him. He was 51 years old, and the young pastor said, “You can’t do this if you’re over 50” to his face. Do you think his church was small? He said, “I don’t care where I am, I have to learn God’s Word” in earnestness. Even right now, he’s the same way. When we go to trainings and conferences, he’s red in the face, “I received so much grace today.”
God uses him because he has no pride. Someone who lays down prostrate before God’s Word is someone who is used to following God’s Word. You have to train to be obedient to follow the direction of the master. It doesn’t matter how healthy or strong of a horse you are; you have to follow the commands of the master to be a good horse. So, the greatest horse is the one who is able to follow the direct commands of the master.
Whom does God use the best? The one who is able to move fluidly following God’s Word. If you have pride, you cannot be used. Let’s say there’s a horse who has stubborn pride and the master pulls it in one direction but the horse won’t move? Then the horse will be killed or sold off. Someone who is good for God to use. God doesn’t use skillful people, but it doesn’t mean He uses only skill-less people. God uses the one who is right for Him to call.
God doesn’t call people with good personalities; Paul did not have a good personality and fought with his evangelism team. He always had a bottle by his nose because his personality was so hot-tempered. Then he shouldn’t have been used, right? But he moved before God. He went into a city and was stoned almost to death and went immediately back in. Everyone thought he was dead but God gave His Word, “There are still those in this city to receive salvation.”
Most people would say, “I can’t go. I’ve been so diligent until now, I hope God will take it easy on me.” He was stoned almost to the point of death. How did he get up? God gave him the strength as he followed the Word. Moreso than not having pride, we let it go before God’s Word. All throughout the week, I listened to the pastor’s messages, and it’s for seminarians, so the laypeople didn’t come, but it was only the two pastors for RU who came. I thought, “At least I should go,” but I listened to everything and one thing remained with me. Pastor Kim gave his pulpit message for 55 years. The one thing that remains is, as a result of 55 years of ministry, is that the church belongs to God. That was the word he wanted to give to his successors after 55 years of ministry. That word has value.
It doesn’t matter if that ministry was a success or failure; the conclusion he reached after 55 years of ministry is, “God is the Master of the church.” There are words your parents say when they succeed or words of warning because they fail, but both are effective. Successful parents say, “This is how I succeeded and you can succeed this way.” A failure would say, “This is how I failed, so don’t fail like me,” but these aren’t words you read from a book. They stand as witnesses.
Church officers, it doesn’t matter if your life is a success or failure. You can stand as a witness of the life you’ve lived, “Do not live your life like this,” you can witness walking down the wrong path, otherwise the kids will walk down that same path, but the people who walk down the correct path are witnesses of the correct path. That’s why you shouldn’t look down on the words of those who have experienced much of life, if they speak with the words of the gospel, isn’t that right?
If they don’t even have the gospel, their life experiences are useless but they think their life ended up like that because they met the wrong person, “If I just hadn’t met this one person, my business wouldn’t be like this,” they’ll make excuses. Listen to those who have the gospel, those who have received the grace of God. There’s a reason why you have to listen to their words.
And God made me come from Mon-Fri just so I can hear those words. Because the other words didn’t come into me, but those words came into me with great assurance. These are the words that came out from a witness as a pastor for 55 years.
We’re going to begin the year 2022, and I hope that you’ll say, “I’ll surely receive the answers of the 70 workers.” And I will play the role of raising up the disciples, establishing them in the church, and commissioning them out into the field. If this is the word we received, then now we have to think, “What do we have to renew to allow all the people of the nation to come to our church?” And then when they do come into our church, “How can I devote myself in the role of establishing them in the church, where they can listen to the pulpit message to receive strength and guidance, as well as the basis of the basic message. And I will help them hold onto this word and pray.” And therefore, you raise them up to live a life of word, prayer, and evangelism everyday. If someone who barely manages to think about those three things, it’s going to seem so burdensome. That’s a person far away from God. So a problem isn’t a problem, but they are living in the problem.
They cannot escape from the scars of their past. If you live every single day with the word, prayer, and evangelism, God gives you, that’s someone who can save the field. And this is how you raise people up inside the church too. I’d someone is within the church but then they are irrelevant to the pulpit message, that is the 80th worker, they are not included in the Bible. But actually those 80th workers are scattered throughout the Bible, and later on they do get used. They do some kind of work in some special fields no one else goes to. However, they will remain irrelevant to the pulpit message. They’re just going to be in the special force by themselves. They are not even soldiers. They’re not satisfied by the pulpit message, however , there are some places where they are used. That’s not general. It must be the word God gives you because God is alive giving you his word. If every single day, you’re able to receive the answers of word, prayer, and evangelism, then you can receive the answers of being the 70 workers.
So simply put, if I’m not able to proclaim the gospel to someone who does not know the gospel, then I have to learn the gospel. I must be able to give this person the gospel completely in 5 min. If I have 1 min, I have to give them the gospel in 1 min, if I have 1 hour, I have to be able to explain the gospel in 1 hour. If I’m with them the entire day, I have to be able to explain the gospel the entire day. You have to be able to enjoy this gospel so naturally in a relaxed way.
This is how I must be prepared. That’s the most basic. If you’re not able to do that, you cannot receive the answers as the 70 workers. So if you don’t have this, do this first, either do one of two things, learn or teach. And there’s no straddling in the middle you have to be one or the other, there’s no in between heaven and hell. Jesus said to go and teach. If you cannot teach then go and learn, there’s no middle. That’s why you must save the field. This is the blessing God gave us.
And the business people, and remnants within this must arise. Following the word of God and plan, you know what you have to reduce, and you know what you have to do more of. And starting from next year, I want to make parts for the remnants more formal. Because for about 2 years, we were maintaining this pandemic system, but how long are we going to keep that going. Even right now all the kids go to school, and if you give the vaccine cards you can go into restaurants. So we have to live in this kind of environment. Then how long should we maintain the pandemic protocol in the church? The church has to move in the same way before the pandemic. “Oh but pastor I can’t move” then you should rest and relax. But if you remain that way you cannot see God’s answers.
That’s just the thought I have in my heart, how long should we be worried about the pandemic? Jesus said go and make disciples of all nations, but now our actions are not aligned with God. Now a days, people are saying things, “With Corona” so now regardless of Corona we still have to carry forward. And the church must continuously do the works God desires.
I hope you will pray so that one by one, things go correctly. If there’s anything you want to do, tell me at any point. Don’t just keep your mouth shut and judge someone who actually takes on the role and says, “I can do it better.” If that person is bad at their job, you do it, but if you can’t do it, you’ll say, “Oh, that’s why this person is doing it.” Then we all come to life and become the church God desires. That’s the word from the headquarters message as well, when a church goes beyond 100 or 1000 people, they have to rely on the church officers to relay this movement.
Within the church and field, you will absolutely have the answer of the life movement taking place. I hope you will hold onto this and pray that you will receive the correct answers in 2022. Let us pray holding onto the Word God has given us, allow us to remain within the answer of the 70 workers, allow us to be the 70 workers to save the church and the field, may we be the 70 workers who save the 237 nations. Let us pray together.
Prayer
We’re coming to the end of 2021 right now, so I hope you will listen to the 2021 New Year’s message when you go home. What remains? The Word God established in me. When the Word was established in me, when I challenged and put that into practice, that was aligned with eternity with God. Nothing else will remain; we just spent all our time this year eating, sleeping, and getting dressed. Those things disappear, but the word of God coming upon me and me following after the Word of God is the only thing that will remain.
For 2022, don’t do any unnecessary things. Our nature is to be so busy and involved, there’s nothing that remains. We store up so much but there’s a hole in the pantry. You’ve been working diligently on your own but there’s a hole in the pantry. That’s what happens to our lives.
We start 2022 so we ask for the Word with which God will guide. I’ve seen until now, that’s all that remains. The thing that remains is when I realize and understand God’s word, and come to the conclusion, “This is what I must do.” Everything else seems like I was doing so much, but nothing remains, but the Word of God is eternal and every time I move along with the eternal word, that Word is eternal. As we look forward to the rest of the lives we live, may we enjoy the blessing of living with the Triune God.
Let us pray for the Sunday Message. My personality isn’t good at fronting, and I’m easily embarrassed, so my personality makes it so that it’s hard for me to ask you to pray for me. And honestly speaking, I’m speaking very boldly right now. But the heart that I have right now is thinking, “Oh what if I’m saying this too much” but you have to pray for the pulpit message, this is from my research, God has to give it to me for me to give it to you. And I’m sure everybody who is praying for the messenger is receiving answers in their life. So even if you don’t like me, I hope you’ll pray for me, for you. Even if your post officer is ugly, pray for him so you can get mails.
The one who really prays will pray for the messages even if no one tells them too. Because the important word of God must come to me. I could just give the message from my studies, I don’t have to pray because I can just do it from my studies. In fact there’s no need for me to do that, I can just play a recording for you guys. If that’s God’s plan I can do that, but that’s not God’s plan. That’s why you must pray. Then every single week, the word of God that has no choice but to be fulfilled will be established in your fields. So let’s pray for the Sunday Message. Not just fulfillment but the word that can save the 237 nations, the word that can do regional evangelism, the word that will allow us to do summit, healing, and 237 movement. God has to give that to us. That’s why we pray. Let’s pray for the Sunday Message,
Our third prayer topic is for the missions fields. Right now as I pray, I don’t have a heart for all the nations of the world, but the heart God gives me is for the Sedona Navajo field. We’ve been praying for them for about six years and helping them with discipleship training. We haven’t been helping them with finances because we didn’t want to give them a beggar mentality, but God has been blessing our offering, and even if He hasn’t, I think this is an area we haven’t been giving missions offering even if we should be.
The second person we’re praying for is Missionary Kim, and him being in his field is missions. That region of Utah where this missionary lives is bad in sexual immorality and pornography, they are the largest percentage of pornography creators and homosexuality, only second to San Francisco, and it’s because the Mormon church has completely seized them, finanically and spiritually. The Mormons control the area with such strictness, it’s almost like the level of China or North Korea. It’s to the point where if someone new comes into a marketplace, they know the person is new and the employee of the store will approach that person and bring them into the Mormon church. That’s how different it is over there, they completely seize the area spiritually and physically.
The fact he just exists there is missions. According to the heart God continues to give me, we will continue to move. If you have any opinions, let us know; if you don’t, we’ll decide with our elders and be led by God. Let us pray for our missions field.
Benediction
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unlimited love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of all the church officers and remnants who desire to hold onto the prayer topic of being the 70 workers, be with us from now until forevermore always, Amen