Luke 10:17-24
Please turn in your copy of the
word of God to Luke’s gospel chapter 10 verses 17 through
24 will be our reading today. Jesus has sent out the 70 or
the 72, depending on which translation of the scriptures you’re using.
He sends out these 72 to do ministry in his name and they have come
back to him and are giving a report of how things went and they rejoice. Jesus rejoices with them. And so we want to consider today
how we can rejoice in these same things. So let us hear God’s
word. This is Luke’s gospel, chapter
10. Beginning at verse 17, and we read these words, the 72 returned
with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us
in your name. And Jesus said to them, I saw
Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given
you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the
power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless,
do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you,
but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And in that
same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank
you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these
things from the wise and the understanding and you have revealed
them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your
gracious will. All things have been handed over
to me by my father. And no one knows who the son
is except the father or who the father is except the son and
anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him. Then turning to
the disciples, he said to them privately, blessed are the eyes
that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets
and kings desire to see what you see and they did not see
it and to hear what you hear. And they did not hear it. Let
us pray together. Lord, we affirm that. The things
that we see have been hidden from the wise. They’ve been hidden
from the understanding of this age, but revealed to us, your
children. And for that, we are thankful. We pray, Lord, that it would
be your gracious will now to reveal even more to us as your
word is read and preached, that we would have eyes to see the
kingdom of heaven and that we would rejoice in this great privilege
that is ours. Hear us now as we pray in Jesus
name. Amen. Well, it’s homecoming this January,
this church will be 55 years old. If you look at the book
of membership, over 1000 people in the last 55 years have united
with this church. As you see from your bulletin
today over the decades, many have gone on from this church
to the big church in heaven, as it were. Probably, this is
just a guess, but over 4,000 people have passed through these
doors in the last 55 years. You’ve witnessed baptisms, weddings,
conversions. You’ve sat under the preaching
of God’s word, the discipleship ministry of the church. You’ve
eaten meals, you’ve served together on projects. Many milestones,
many reasons for joy could be expressed. for all that God has
done in this place. You could list your reasons.
You could list reasons personal to you, to your family, things
that are called to mind as you reflect on life here these last
55 years. Well, Jesus, at the return of
the 72, list reasons for rejoicing in the ministry of the church.
We should be thankful for the work that has been done here,
the work that is being done in other places in our community.
We should be thankful for the work that is being done around
the world in nations across this globe. and thankful for the past
centuries, millennia of church ministry. But also we should
look ahead. But what does Jesus see as cause
for rejoicing? What does he give us as good
reasons to rejoice? Well, there are four in this
passage. The first thing in this passage we see is we should rejoice
in ministry success. When we succeed in ministry,
when we see biblical success in ministry, we should be thankful.
We should rejoice. We should sing. Look, if you
will, with me in verses 17 through 19. The 72 returned with joy,
saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. What is ministry success? How
would we define it? Well, there’s two ways really
you can define ministry success. One is we could define ministry
success by how the world would define it. Or we could define
ministry success by the way Jesus sees it and explains it to us
in the scripture. We could have man’s definition
of ministry success or the scriptures definition. How would Jesus command
us to do ministry and therefore define success? Well, we preach
the word. We make disciples. We serve one
another. We hold people to the standard
of holiness and we worship God and we perform the sacraments
of baptism in the Lord’s Supper as biblically commanded. And
if we do that as God’s church from the beginning of time when
Christ ascended all the way until Jesus returns to take his church
to be with him, if we simply preached Worshipped, made disciples
and held the community of the congregation up to a standard
of holy living. We would be obedient. We would
be successful. The world, however, has added
so much into the success of the church. If your building is not
big, if you don’t have significant numbers of nickels and noses,
you’re not succeeding in the eyes of the world and on and
on. These definitions could go until
guess what eventually takes place. The church has lost focus of
Jesus mission and we have gained a new focus. And that is the
world’s definition of success. What is ministry success that
we should rejoice over? Well, in this little vignette
here, this little picture of Jesus disciples returning after
successful ministry, they rejoice that Satan. listens to their
voice, that they have command over Satan. They can cast demons
out in Jesus name. And they actually they actually
come out. They have ministry success. And there’s a little bit of caution
in this passage, I do believe we should be careful to rejoice
in ministry success and leave it at our level. and say, oh,
look at what good preaching I’ve done. Look at what good eldering
I’ve done. Look at what good deaconing I’ve
done. Look at what good Sunday school teaching I’ve done. For
we remember, we must remember everything we do is for the glory
of God and for the good of our neighbors. And so when ministry
success puffs us up, when ministry success leads us to think, oh,
we’re doing it right. I’m going to bottle this up and
I’m going to go on the conference circuit and I’m going to sell
my successful regiment to others. Jesus says you’re missing the
point. We rejoice in ministry success
as it is defined by scripture. Jesus says something very interesting
to these disciples. You find it in verses 18 and
19, he says to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority
to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the
enemy and nothing shall hurt you. What is Jesus saying to
them when you have ministry success? There’s greater things taking
place as we preach the word, proclaim the word, as we make
disciples, as we baptize, as we receive the sacraments of
the Lord’s Supper, as we hold our community of believers to
a high standard of holiness. Jesus is saying Satan is defeated
over and over and over again. I bet you don’t think that way,
do you? That when you’re in prayer time. When you’re talking one-on-one
with another person and encouraging them to follow Christ in a biblical,
faithful way, it’s a defeat against Satan. And Jesus says, every
time you disciples, he’s saying to us, every time we minister
in God’s name, every time the church succeeds, Satan falls,
Satan fails. Now, some people believe this
passage of scripture is referring to Jesus and the time before
the creation when Satan fell from his position as an angel
of light and became the devil. doesn’t seem to be what this
context is teaching. Jesus is saying to the disciples,
look, as you do ministry in my name, you are battling against
cosmic powers. You are battling against demons.
You are battling against this present darkness. And when the
word of God has success, Satan falls, Satan fails. I want you
to think about that every time, every time you face an obstacle
in your Christian walk. Or every time you seek to do
Christian ministry, you’re encouraging another brother or sister, do
this biblically, do this faithfully, do this right. Think of this,
Satan will fall instead of succeed. Satan will fail and fall short
of his wicked ends and means when we are faithful and we minister
successfully in Jesus name. How do we determine if ministry
has been successful? We do things that are biblical.
We preach, we hold worship, we disciple, we hold people to a
high standard of holiness. And we succeed because God is
with us and we have his power and his protection. There’s a
little bit of Psalm 23 in these couple of verses. You know, yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil. He says, your rod and your staff there with me,
they comfort me. Well, look, he says, if we go out in ministry,
Serpents and scorpions and the power of the enemy, none of it
shall hurt you. It’s a little echo of Romans
11, isn’t it? Or Romans 8, I’m sorry. What
can separate us in this life from the love of God and Christ?
Not a thing, not a thing of this world and not a thing of the
supernatural evil world can harm us. And so we rejoice in ministry
success. But Jesus also gives them another
reason to rejoice. We find it in verse 20. He says,
nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that you have power
over Satan, but that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice
that your names are written heaven and heaven. That’s the second
thing we rejoice in our salvation. We rejoice in the fact that our
names are eternally written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And
so the second thing is we rejoice in our salvation. Wouldn’t it
be pretty exciting to be one of the 72 and to have seen a
person under the tyranny of Satan and to say in Jesus name, Satan,
you leave this person alone and to throw Satan out like a bomb
on the streets. and say, you leave this human
being alone. Wouldn’t that be wonderful to
be able to do that? We every day see people tormented. We
every day we see people who are bent and bruised and broken by
the effects of sin in this world. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? if
we could do something about it. And Jesus says ministry success
is wonderful. I can’t tell you how sweet it
is as a minister of the gospel to hear someone say, I heard
what you said, and I’m going to do something about it. Or
to see some situation in a person’s life be nearly impossible, but
for God’s grace. And you see God at work in their
life. doing amazing things, there’s
great cause for rejoice. And Jesus says, that’s a good
reason. We should rejoice in successful ministry, but here’s
a better reason. Rejoice that your name is written in the eternal
book of heaven. Rejoice in your salvation. Earthly ministry, wonderful,
but your name written in heaven’s book, even better. Think about it for a moment.
Isn’t it a wonderful thought to know that God has known us
by name from before the foundation of the world? He’s predestined
us. He’s called us. His gospel reached
our ears. Our eyes saw, our ears heard. Our hearts were pricked with
the gospel. We repented of our sin by God’s
grace. We were made new creations in
Jesus. The Holy Spirit filled us. We
who were once not children of the living God are now children
of the living God. And he calls us my child. And there’s not a thing that
can do that can erase our name from this book. Jesus says that’s
reason to rejoice. And so we rejoice in ministry
success. We rejoice in salvation. What’s
the third thing? The third thing is we rejoice
in Revelation, we rejoice in that God has revealed to us the
truths of his kingdom and his holy scriptures. We find this
in verses 21 and 22. In that same hour, Jesus rejoiced
in the spirit and he said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise. You’ve
hidden these things from the understanding, but you have revealed
them to little children. Yes, Father, for such. was your gracious will. We rejoice
in revelation. We are fascinated, aren’t we,
by famous people? We’re fascinated by famous people.
In fact, every month when I go in the barbershop, there’s a
stack of People magazines. There’s a stack of Us weeklies. There’s a stack of some other,
I don’t know, famous people tell all. And they don’t do much for
me. I like to read Our State. I like
to read the car magazines, they’re a little more interesting to
me. But we’re fascinated, aren’t we, with a movie star and what
flavor ice cream they like. We’re fascinated with a movie
star and what they like to do on Friday nights. We’re fascinated
with famous people and how they spend their free time. I don’t
know why this is, but it’s true. Well, don’t you think we should
be fascinated with what Jesus’ interests are? And he tells us
what his interest is here in verse 21 and 22. Here in the scriptures, maybe
for the only time, that means this is significant. This is
the only place in the scriptures where it says Jesus rejoices
and he rejoices in this thing. Well, what is the thing he rejoices
in? He rejoices in the fact that
you and I, by the Holy Spirit’s gift, have eyes that see the
scripture, ears that hear the scripture and hearts that understand
it. We know that we were once dead
in our sins and trespasses and that because of our state of
sin and fallen nature, we had no interest in God, no interest
in Jesus, no interest except to keep on sinning and get better
at sinning and keep our fist aimed at the sky, at the God
of the universe. That’s what Romans chapter one teaches us.
But Jesus rejoices in this. He rejoices That the father,
the Lord of heaven has hidden the truths of the scripture from
the wise and the learned, but he has revealed them. to us,
to the children of this earth. Jesus endorses this. He rejoices in this fact that
things of the kingdom have been revealed. In fact, he goes on
in verse 22 to say this, all things have been handed over
to me by my father. No one knows who the son is except
the father or who the father is except the son and anyone
to whom the son chooses to reveal these things. Do you see? Do you hear? Do you understand
what’s in the Bible, what the content of the kingdom is, what
Jesus message is? If so, Jesus has opened your
eyes. He’s opened your heart. He’s
revealed to you the secret things of the Lord. He has opened up
the wonders of heaven to you. He has removed the scales from
your eyes. He has put Not he’s taken from
you the heart of stone that hated him and he’s given you a heart
of flesh that loves him and seeks him. And so he rejoices in the
fact that the word of God has been revealed to us. Do you know
Jesus? Do you read the Bible and you
get it? You understand it? Do you realize
that this has been revealed to you by the sun? You have been
converted. You have been brought from darkness
to light and Jesus rejoices in it. But do you? You know, sometimes
we rejoice in the American church in some funny things. And it’s
often not God’s standards of preaching and discipleship and
baptism and the Lord’s Supper and holding the congregation
of people to a high standard of holiness. It’s often the worldly
things. Look at what we have built. Look
at the nickels, look at the noses, look at these worldly successes.
And sometimes we wonder at these things and we aim at these things
and we miss the success of preaching. We miss the simple success of
the sacraments. We miss the simple success of
teaching the kids the scriptures and the catechism. We miss the
simple success of encouraging one another day by day to live
according to the standard of God’s holiness. Friends, we should
rejoice in the things that Jesus rejoices in. He rejoices that,
you know, that you understand. Do you rejoice in that? There’s a fourth thing that we
rejoice in. We rejoice in ministry success. We rejoice in our salvation. We rejoice in revelation. And
lastly, we rejoice in our privilege. And Jesus explains this in verses
23 and verse 24. He says, turning to the disciples,
he said to them privately, blessed are the eyes that see what you
see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desire to
see what you see, and they did not see it. And to hear what
you hear, And they did not hear it. We understand, don’t we,
what a beatitude is. We understand them from Matthew’s
gospel, where Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn and
they shall be comforted. And on he goes through the beatitudes. There are other beatitudes in
the scriptures. There’s about six of them in
the book of Revelation, but there are others as Jesus and the apostles
speak words of blessing to the church. A beatitude, a blessed
are statement is a wonderful thing. And here is a beatitude
that Jesus gives. He rejoices in our privilege
of seeing what King David did not see. He rejoices in our privilege
of seeing what Isaiah the prophet never realized. He rejoices in
what Father Abraham was promised, but only saw from a distance. He rejoices that the old covenant
saints did not see these things. But in time, the disciples did. In time, the 72 did. Yes, David knew of the Messiah,
but he only saw him from a distance. Yes, Isaiah preached of the servant
in his four servant songs. He preached of the virgin birth
of the Lord Jesus in the early chapters of his prophecy, but
he only saw it from a distance. And as the book of Hebrews said,
they died not having received the promises, but they saw them
from afar and they rejoiced greatly. Dear friends, these 70 were privileged. Jesus says, you see, you hear,
you touch, you experience what Isaiah, what David, what Jeremiah,
what Hezekiah, what Solomon longed to see and knew a little bitty
bit about. And you see it with your eyes.
They had Jesus, the Messiah, in the flesh, in their midst. They heard his voice. They experienced
his miracles. They saw his teaching. And even
they were privileged to be sent out by him to do ministry. Friends, we got a little bit
more than they do. No, we have not seen Jesus. We have not laid
our eyes on him. Oh, but we have these 66 books. We have the full whole counsel
of God. We have 2000 years of the New
Testament church and her ordinances. We have the wonders of 2000 years
of rich scholarship and theology as people have studied the word.
They’ve studied theology. We live this side of the Reformation
where many of the wrongs of the church, the medieval church,
were made right. Dear friends, we are privileged
as these disciples are. And Jesus says a word of blessing. Blessed are the eyes that see
what you see. I guarantee you on a Monday morning.
Maybe it could creep in to you on a Sunday afternoon. You know,
we’re supposed to count our blessings and name them one by one, but
we’re cynics, aren’t we? We like to count our things we
don’t have and name them one by one. Right. And we start to
count them. But do you hear what Jesus has
said to you today? Blessed are you who see. People have wanted to see this
for centuries and they did not see it. People have wondered
at this revelation and you have the full thing in your laps,
in your hands, on your phones and in your arms reach. If you were to measure Measure your life by the world
standards today. It would be by education. It
would be by social standing. It would be by your stock portfolio.
And it would be by your resume and your accomplishments. And
there would be much causing for rejoicing. It’s hard to get a
college degree when you take that picture of yourself with
your diploma. That’s a big milestone, isn’t it? These are not small
things. But we take these earthly accomplishments and we begin
to stack them up. And we quickly forget how much
we’ve been given in Christ Jesus. And all these things should fade
away, but for the things that Jesus has done for us and given
to us. Dear friends, what are you most
happy about? What do you rejoice over day by day? As you think
of your blessings, is it your privilege? You see what Kings
have not seen. Is it the revelation, God has
opened your eyes, you understand? Is it your salvation, your name
is permanently written in the book of heaven? Or is it your ministry success?
Jesus says, rejoice in these things, for they are a wonder.
Let us pray together. Our Lord, our God, we thank you
so much that Though the world gives us definition, though the
world gives us things to measure, you give us better ones. And
we rejoice this day that through many years of ministry in this
place, many names through the preaching of your word have been
written in the book of life. We rejoice that there have been
many successes here. We rejoice that you’ve given
people eyes to see in this place, ears to hear, hearts that understand,
and hands and feet that go and serve you in ministry. We rejoice
in our privilege these 2,000 plus years into church history
that we have the full revelation of Jesus. We have the wonders
of centuries of Christian scholarship. We have the blessings of living
post-Reformation. Lord, we are privileged. Help
us never to walk from this place and say we have nothing, for
we have everything in Christ. And we count it a privilege,
a blessing, and we are blessed indeed. Bless us even more, we
pray, so that we might be a blessing to the world and to those who
need to hear of Jesus. Hear our prayers as we pray in
Jesus name. Amen.