Jesus is Sending You
Notes
Transcript
Today we are continuing Luke Gospel in chapter 10. This is our 13th week in the book of Luke. I hope you have received something from Luke’s Gospel. Maybe you have noticed that Luke is a very thorough guy when writing his Gospel account of Jesus. I have said this many times in this series. Luke records more miracles and more parables than any of the other Gospel writers. We are moving right along with chapter 10.
Please, have your Bibles with you each week. I know that we have the verses upon the screen, but it will benefit you if you will follow along with your own text. I read from the NIV for those that use the Bible app. It is so important that you know how to find scripture on your own. Today I want to begin reading at verse 1.
If you remember from last Sunday, I last finished with Jesus walking along the road and three individuals speaking to Jesus about being His disciple. Each one of them gave an excuse on why they couldn’t do it.
This morning, let me tell you, the best decision you will ever make is making Jesus the Lord of your life. Then once you have made that decision, you go out and tell someone else about the decision you made. Some times we don’t want to follow Jesus right away because we think we have to give up something.
The only thing that you have to give up is your will. You give up your will and you make the decision to follow Jesus. Then you submit to what He wants you to do. And that is the most fulfilling reward that you will ever do.
So, as soon as Jesus finishes talking to those three individuals, He gathers up a group of 72 people and He sends them out into ministry pairs. They go ahead of Him to each town that is along the way. Remember, Jesus is making His way to Jerusalem where He will face His coming death. Look at verse 1.
1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.
2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’
6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.
7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you.
9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say,
11 ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’
12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
14 But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.
15 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.
16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
I remember in the summer time, my Uncle ER would plant a garden. This was a little garden. There would be rows and rows of different items. He would have purple hull peas, corn, tomatoes, all kinds of produce. He would get all that he wanted and then he would call my grandparents and my parents and they would go and pick what they wanted and there was still some left over. There was so much that you couldn’t get it all. The harvest was plentiful.
The people of Jesus time understood what harvesting meant. They primarily dealt with grain and vineyards. They knew what huge crops were and how difficult it could be to gather up everything they needed. Jesus used an illustration about the amount of people that they needed to reach and there wasn’t enough workers to accomplish it all. He compared this to a harvest. He is talking to all 72 of the disciples that were there that day that He is getting ready to send out. He is telling them that they have a job to do.
I believe that Jesus is speaking universally here to all of us. This is only starting with the disciples of long ago. But the work is still to continue today. We have a large harvest field that is in front of us. We have people here in our own town that needs reaping. We have people in the surrounding communities that need reaping. There are people here in the United States that needs reaping and there are people around the world that needs reaping. The harvest is very plentiful. Jesus is calling on you to help reap the harvest.
He even told them that it would be easy. Look at verse 3.
3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.
What do wolves do to lambs when they find them by themselves? They eat them. Jesus was sending them in pairs so that they could help each other. We are to help each other in this harvest field. You have a work to do.
And just like He told the disciples a few chapters before, He told them not to take anything with them. They were rely on God taking care of them. God would help them to accomplish what Christ was sending them to do.
If you go as Christ sends you, God will help you along your journey.
When it was time to reap the harvest toward the end of May or the first week in June, because this marked the beginning of the dry season, whole families move out from their village homes to spend the time in the fields until the harvest is over. This was a family event. The men, women and children would all join in the work of reaping.
That is what we are to do. We need to work as a family. We need to work from the youngest to the oldest to reap the harvest that God has given us to reap. Who have you invited to church lately? Who have you told your story about Jesus changing your life? Time is running short and we have a large harvest that needs to be reaped.
In verse 17, we read that the 72 returned.
17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”
18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.
20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
So, these 72 return and they are excited. They go out and do ministry and they are on a spiritual high. They come back to Jesus and they are amazed that the demons submitted to them when they cast them out in Jesus name.
And Jesus assures them that He gave them the same authority that He has. He also let them know that there was warfare taking place while they were out ministering. He basically tells them that Satan got a black eye while they were ministering. And He tells them that it is even greater than the spirits submitting to them that their names are written in heaven.
We will see people healed, we will see demons cast out, we will see people touched by the power of God, but nothing is greater than seeing someone come to Jesus for the first time or seeing someone come to Jesus that had lost their way. This is what Jesus is telling them. Salvation is better than any of the signs and miracles that we see. That is why it is so important that we do what God is calling us to do and tell people about Jesus. Everything that we do as believers is about Jesus.
These 72 that Jesus sent out weren’t wise, they weren’t the intellectuals. Look at what Jesus says.
21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
22 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
This was an exciting time in Jesus’ ministry. He could see that His teaching was starting to get through to them. They were starting to get it.
Jesus wants you to understand ministry. Ministry is for all of us. Each of you are ministers, maybe not in the capacity that I am in, but you are ministers. We need to be doing the job that God has called each of us to. Then Jesus turned to His disciples and said…
23 Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”
In other words, this is a great time to be alive. The Old Testament prophets would have loved to be here to see this. The disciples were privileged to see the miracles and hear the teaching of the Hope of Israel.
Verse 25 begins a story that all of us are familiar with. However, if it is your first time to hear this story, listen closely because I believe God wants to speak to you this morning through this story.
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
This expert in the law or what we would call a lawyer, asks Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
A lawyer during this time had three things that they did. You might also hear them called scribes. Their three jobs were to study and interpret the law. They were to instruct the Hebrew youth in the law. And they were to decide questions of the law. The first two they did as scholars and teachers and the last as advisers in some court. So, they knew the levitical law quite well and this was a moment where they thought they could stump Jesus, so, they ask, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Look at how Jesus responds.
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
Jesus answers the lawyer’s question with a question. Don’t you love it when people do that.
Jesus asked, “what does the law say?”
The lawyer gives Jesus what we know as the great commandment. Love God with every part of yourself. Your heart, soul, strength, and mind and then also, love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Jesus confirms what the man is saying to be correct. However, it is impossible for a sinful man to love God with all his heart and love his neighbor as himself. If this was possible to do this from birth to death, then the sinful man would not need salvation. Because he would not be lost. But even then, his reward would only be long life on earth, not an eternal life in heaven. As long as he lived sinlessly, he would go on living. Eternal life is only for sinners who acknowledge their lost condition and who are saved by God’s grace.
In order for us to have an eternal life, we need God’s grace because that is what saves us.
But then the man asked Jesus another question.
29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
And this is what Jesus told him.
30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.
31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
This robbery victim, probably a Jew, lay half dead on the road to Jericho. Two people refused to help. One was a Jewish priest and the other a Levite. Thinking this man was dead, according to Levitical law, neither man could touch him without going through a cleansing ritual afterwards. So, avoiding having to go through that they would avoid this man all together. But, there was a third man that came to the rescue. He was a Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews didn’t get along. They were enemies of one another. The Jews treated Samaritans like they were beneath them. So, when Jesus uses a Samaritan as the hero of the story you can only imagine the controversy it possibly created. And when the lawyer answered Jesus in verse one he said, “the one who had mercy on him” instead of mentioning he was the samaritan.
So, the great lesson here is true compassion did not dwell in the heart of the religious leader, or the ministry associate, but a despised enemy. Jesus was talking of a compassion that knew no national boundaries.
The key to this story is not “who is my neighbor” but it is “to whom do I prove myself a neighbor?”
How do you treat the people around you?
This is part of the call that God has placed upon our life. We are to be a neighbor to anyone that is in need of a Savior, whether they think they need one or not. And we are to show them the love that Jesus has shown to us. We bring them to an image of Jesus being the center of it all. Which brings me to this final story that we want to close with.
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.
40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,
42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
You have the story of two sisters. Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. And you have Martha, who was distracted by her preparations for the Royal Guest. Martha wants Jesus to rebuke her sister for failing to help, but Jesus tenderly rebuked Martha for her failing to take the time to be with Jesus.
It is so important that as we go about the work that Jesus has called us to do that we don’t forget the one that called us to do the work. Jesus is our goal. Our worship towards Him is what we strive for. Yes, the work is important, but it is not more important than the one the work is focused on. Jesus is everything. Keep your eyes on Jesus.