Directions For Disciples

Why waste your life on vices when God has given you a mission?

God does not need us to accomplish anything — yet He invites us into work of great importance. In this study of Matthew 10, Dr. Toby Holt walks through Jesus sending out the twelve into the harvest, commissioning them, and charging them not to lean on their own provisions but to trust the One who sends them. The Lord of the harvest hands ordinary people a task that matters eternally.

Dr. Holt presses the question at the heart of this study: if God has given you a calling and a purpose, why waste your time and life on porn, drugs, or alcohol? Addiction is, in part, a theft of purpose — trading a God-given mission for a counterfeit. Matthew 10 calls the disciple to lift his eyes from the idol to the harvest field, to receive freely and give freely, and to spend his days on what will last.

Questions this study answers:

1. What is the harvest field, and who are the laborers? The harvest is the multitude who need the gospel; the laborers are Christ's disciples, sent out by the Lord of the harvest to bring His word to a needy world.

2. Why did Christ tell the apostles not to rely on their own provisions? To teach them to depend on God rather than themselves. The mission is God's, and He supplies those He sends — freeing them from anxious self-reliance.

3. What does this have to do with addiction? Vices steal the time, purpose, and calling God has given. Matthew 10 summons the disciple away from wasting life on idols and toward the meaningful work for which he was redeemed.

"Freely you have received, freely give." — Matthew 10:8 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This study is part of New Geneva Theological Seminary's teaching on addiction, temptation, and freedom in Christ. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.