Luke 10:1-12
Pray with me. We give you thanks,
Almighty God, for your everlasting love and kindness to us. We come
before you now bringing to you these tithes and offerings, but
also our very lives. We know that you want every bit
of us serving you and breathing and laboring hard for your glory
and for the good of our neighbors. And so we pray that our tithes
and offerings, but also our Christian service would be of use to your
kingdom. And that most of all, the name
of Jesus may be made known and famous to the ends of the earth.
And it’s in his name, we pray all these things. Amen. You may
be seated. Turn in your copy of God’s word
to Luke chapter 10. We have finished the long chapter
9. We begin today with chapter 10 verses 1 through 12. Before
we read our scripture today, I want to point out or remind
you of a truth in interpreting the Bible. There are two ways
to read the Bible. One is, does the passage inform
you of something? The other way is, does it tell
you to do something? And so sometimes we can see a
passage like today where Jesus sends out 72 and say, oh, those
are his marching orders for the church. And so sometimes we come
to a Bible passage where we have to say, what was God doing at
that point in human history? Was he giving commands to the
church? Well, he does that later. Or is he giving commands to the
72? And then you say, well, if he
was giving commands to the 72, why do we need to hear it? Well,
we can learn things from him sending out the 72 and giving
them instructions. And so one of the things we must
remember as we read the Bible is to interpret it correctly.
Who are the hearers? Who is the audience? And what
was God intending to teach them? And what is he teaching to us?
Now, sometimes there can be something in the Bible that was told to
a certain era, you do this and it still transfers directly to
us. And so as we read this passage,
Luke chapter 10, 1 to 12, we’ll see Jesus instructing the 72
who go out in his name. And yes, there are things we
can learn for the church and her modern missionary movement. So you’ve got to learn something
every Sunday, right? So there it is. Here’s Luke’s
gospel. Let’s give our attention to God’s
word. Chapter 10, beginning at verse one. After this, the Lord
appointed 72 others and he sent them on ahead of him two by two
in every town and to every place where he himself was about to
go. And he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the
laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to
the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
Go your way. Behold, I am sending you. I’m
sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money
bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.
Whatever house you enter, first say, peace be to this house.
And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him.
But if not, it will return to you and remain in the same house,
eating and drinking what they provide. For the laborer deserves
his wages. Do not go from house to house.
Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, Eat what is
set before you, heal the sick in it, and say to them, the kingdom
of God has come near. But whenever you enter a town
and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say,
even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off
against you. Nevertheless, we know this, that
the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you, it will be more bearable
on that day for Sodom than for that town. Let us pray together. Our God, we pray that you would
grant us eyes that see and ears that hear and hearts that understand,
that understand how great and wide and deep and far is your
love for us, but also for the lost and dying world. Help us
to have a heart that beats the same as Jesus’ heart beats, a
heart full of mercy and grace. Hear our prayers in the name
of Jesus. Amen. In the 1900s, there was
a British author named G.K. Chesterton. Some of you may have
read some of his work. And a British newspaper during
his lifetime wrote editorial. And the editorial went something
like this. What’s wrong with the world? And in their editorial,
they sought to explain what they thought was wrong with the world.
But they said to the readers, you write your answer to the
question in. And so GK Chesterton wrote in
a simple note to this newspaper in answer to the question, what’s
wrong with the world? His simple reply was this, I
am. And he signed his name, Gilbert
Keith Chesterton. I wonder how many of us would
have that same reply. Oh, I can make a list of what’s
wrong with the world. And I guarantee you it would not start with me,
but What Mr. Chesterton understood as a Christian
is that what’s wrong with the world is, in fact, each and every
one of us. For God made us righteous. He
made us holy. He made us sinless. He made us
in the image of God and put us in the garden in the first parent,
Adam. And Adam was to live for God’s
glory. He was to live for God’s good
and for the good of neighbor. He was to expand the garden until
the whole earth was covered with the goodness of Eden. He was
to dress the earth, to keep it, to make it bear fruit, to have
children and to increase and multiply both fruit and children
on the earth until the whole earth was an Eden like paradise,
or as we might say, heaven. on earth, but we know how the
story changed. We know that one fateful day
Satan entered the garden. He tempted Eve, who then tempted
her husband. They ate of the fruit which God
had forbidden. Their eyes were opened. They saw good and evil.
They sinned against the holy one of Israel. They sinned against
their creator who had provided so much for them. They were cursed. Instead of being happy and holy,
they became sinful and miserable. And so God cast them out of the
garden. And so life east of Eden, life
outside the garden is bent. It’s broken. It’s cursed. It’s
difficult. It’s full of hardships. We’re under God’s wrath, his
misery or his curse, and our lives are ones of misery and
futility, except for the hope of the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We understand God’s story of
creation. We understand God’s story of
fall and what’s wrong with the world is. We are we are east
of Eden. We are living outside of God’s
will. But thanks be to God for Christ,
who comes into our lives when we are not worshiping him, but
ourselves and other things. He comes into our lives when
we are ungrateful. He comes into our lives when
we are greedy and sinful, when we are hell bent on self-indulgence
and self-glory. And God, through Christ, rescues
us, forgives us. He cleanses us. He makes us new
creations in Christ Jesus. And so what’s wrong with the
world is mankind. But what can fix the world is
Jesus and his glorious gospel. And so we recognize the hardship
of this world. Soon after Adam and Eve fell
into sin, Cain killed his brother Abel. There was Lamech who said
the revenge that I will exact on anyone who comes after me
is 70 times the revenge of Cain. There’s the Tower of Babel, there’s
Sodom and there’s Gomorrah. You get to the Age of the Flood
stage where God says, I am sorry that I have made mankind and
put them on the earth for they are only evil all the time and
I will wipe away everyone from the face of the earth. But then
there’s this wonderful little message of hope. But Noah found
favor in the eyes of almighty God. So what’s wrong with the
world? It’s sin. It’s rotten humanity. It’s mankind against almighty
God. But what’s right with the world?
It’s living under the power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And so we consider this passage
today in light of what’s wrong with the world, but also how
can the world be made right? And we see Jesus send out these
72. He sends them into the world
to preach the good news of the kingdom of almighty God. As these 72 are sent out, these
72 disciples are sent out. Their job is this. It’s to labor
in the kingdom by speaking peace from house to house, healing
the sick and proclaiming the kingdom of God is near. Now,
we understand this mission. We understand this message for
it has been. where we have lived for the last
several chapters of the Gospel of Luke. The 72 will go on behalf
of Jesus from town to town. Jesus will come later. They’re
sort of the front men, you might say. They’re to speak peace from
house to house, heal the sick, and proclaim the kingdom of Christ
is near. But there’s some key instructions
that Jesus gives them. And it’s from these key instructions
that we can learn some things as the church in 2019 about our
mission, about the way we accomplish our mission. And there are a
handful of things we ought to consider. So think of it this
way, as these 72 labored in the kingdom, speaking peace, healing
the sick and proclaiming the kingdom, You might think of these
things as we in 2019 are the church. We preach the gospel,
we have worship and we evangelize, we make disciples. So what should
these 72 have done along their mission way? What can we learn
and do along our mission way? Well, the first thing Jesus teaches
them is about prayer. Notice in verse two, after he
sends them and tells them what they’re to do, he says, the harvest
is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly
to the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest. Sometime around the 1950s, most
every church in America had a Wednesday evening prayer meeting. Some
of you who grew up in that era, you remember it. I grew up in
church in the 70s and 80s and 90s, and we always had a Wednesday
prayer meeting. But so many churches in the United States stopped
having prayer meeting. Now they stopped having it because
people got busier, kids got into sports, people’s hours of work
were longer, more two income households took up the time of
the family, and church became less of a priority. But what
functionally happened when the prayer meetings of the church
closed down? It would be like the United States
Army saying, we’re not going to use guns anymore. It would
be like police officers saying, we’re going to leave that big
belt full of tools for law enforcement off our bodies. We laid down
our greatest weapon against Satan. When we shut down the prayer
meeting, one of the happiest things I think that I encountered
five years ago when I sat down with the elders of this church
to consider becoming the pastor is they said this as a priority.
In addition to morning and evening worship and Sunday school, they
said, we want to reestablish a prayer meeting. And I said,
that’s a place I can work. That’s a place I can serve. That’s
a place I can ministry because they have decided to pick up
what many churches have put down, the greatest weapons of Christian
warfare, prayer. And so Jesus says to these 72,
he says to us, the church, you need to pray earnestly to the
Lord of the harvest to raise up more workers, more harvesters
to go into the fields. And to bring in God’s children,
the world is in great bondage, it is in great need of rescue.
We all understand that biblically. We all understand that theologically.
I just explained it to you from the book of Genesis and from
the themes of creation, fall and redemption. It’s in our brains.
But friends, is it in our hearts? Maybe more importantly, is it
on our prayer list? What do we pray for each Sunday
night? What do we pray for in our secret places of prayer?
What do we pray for when we get on our knees and go before Almighty
God? You know, not every one of us
can go on the mission field. And not every one of us has a
checkbook that can support the great work of missions, but every
one of us can pray. And Jesus is calling us to that
great task, to prayer. He’s calling the 72 to pray and
he calls us, his church, this day to pray. The second thing
Jesus tells them, and maybe it’s not an aha moment here, it’s
a no, duh, but it’s go. He says, pray. But he also says,
go look at verse three. He says in verse three, go your
way. Behold, I am sending you. Dear brothers and sisters, if
we’re to do missions work, if the 72 are to do missions work,
we must go. John Piper, one of the great
theologians of our day, wrote a book several years ago called
Let the Nations Be Glad. It was based on Psalm 67, which
we know is based on the Aaronic benediction. Every Sunday we
hear the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord cause his face
to shine upon you, be gracious. The Lord lift up his countenance
upon you and give you peace. That’s from number six. Moses
and Aaron were to bless the people that way. God’s blessing, his
benediction on the people of Israel. Well, Psalm 67 picks
up on that benediction from Numbers and says, Oh God, bless your
people. So that as we go, we are a blessing
to the world. It’s the missionary movement
of the Old Testament. As God’s people, Israel, we’re
blessed. And in the same way as the church
is blessed, we go into the world and we’re a blessing to others.
And so as God blesses us, we seek to be a blessing to others.
Well, in this book that Piper wrote called Let the Nations
Be Glad, he said the church can do three things with the missionary
mandate. We can go. We can send or we
can disobey. Now, some of us can go and some
people are called to missionary service, but we can all send. We can send through our prayers.
We can send through our checkbooks. We can send through our letters
of encouragement. We can send through, maybe from
time to time, visiting the mission field on a short-term trip and
bringing encouragement from the homeland to the foreign mission
field. But as Piper so rightly says,
and as Jesus teaches, we must either go or send, otherwise
we are disobedient to the great commission. And as we go, we
are to take the message of reconciliation. Where there is no church, we
establish them. Where God is not worshiped, we
establish worship. Sometimes it’s in foreign places,
but dear friends, let me encourage you in this way. Just look at
Europe. We’re not far behind them. Europe
is a post-Christian place, whereas many of our missionaries come
and report to us, we’re seeing and hearing tales of places of
worship, beautiful places like our own house of worship turned
into nightclubs or heaven forbid turned into places of worship
of other gods. Whereas we’re seeing in larger
American cities, places of worship are being turned into museums
and into multi housing units. And so we must go, we must send
or we disobey. We go where there is no church.
We go and we preach and we establish the worship of the living, true
and true God. But dear friends, the mission
field is coming here. Just as Europe has gone its way,
we’re not very far behind. Every week, church after church
after church in America closes down. And let me encourage you
by having you think this way. If there is no church to go or
send, There is no missions. And so we must be sure, we must
be sure that here in America, we, we maintain strong churches
that can be going and sending churches. Otherwise there will
be nations across the pond who are going and sending our way. Culture is headed that way. History
is proving that to be the direction that we are heading. And so Jesus
teaches us to pray. He tells us to go. The third
thing he encourages these 72 and us, the church, the third
way he does so is he says, trust the Lord. Verse four teaches
us to trust the Lord. The first part of verse four
says this, carry no money bag, carry no knapsack, wear no sandals
and greet no one on the road. The first part of verse four,
carry nothing with you, no money, no bag, no, phone charger. I mean, think of the things you
grab on your way out the door for a small trip, a great trip.
You, you, you’ve got a list. You, you make it, you, you, you
know what you need. You need your, your pills, your
vitamins. You need your hairdryer. Uh, you need your razor, your
toothbrush. You need your this, that, and the other. And Jesus
says, this is a trust me trip. You go, you serve and you trust
the Lord. Now, Jesus, as we have seen in
the last several weeks of our study, when he’s training his
disciples, he’s a full disclosure sender. He doesn’t say, look,
it’s going to be rosy. You’re going to stay in five
star hotels. The food’s going to be, you know, Michelin cuisine,
you know, from France standards, it’s going to be, I mean, the
best of the best. No, he says foxes have holes. The birds of
the air have nest, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his
head and he sends them out with nothing. Carry nothing. Go. Go among wolves. Go among
enemies. Carry nothing. Who would go? Well, who has gone in Christian
history? One of the greatest things we can do as believers
to encourage our faith, besides reading our Bible and attending
church, is to read biographies of Christian people. Read biographies
of folks like Corrie ten Boom who survived the Holocaust. Read
biographies of Elizabeth Elliot and Nate Saint and those who
in recent years have suffered so much for the cause of Christ.
And you’ll see the principle of trusting the Lord. I believe
it was Nate Saint, one of the five missionaries killed in Ecuador
who said this. Maybe it was his friend, Jim
Elliott. He is no fool who gives up what
he cannot keep to gain what he can never lose. Oh, we’re so
busy, aren’t we? Shining and polishing our homes
and our houses and our cars and our keeping count of our dollars
and cents. Meanwhile, the laborers are few. The laborers are unsupported.
The harvest is there, but God’s work cannot be done because,
as the great prophet Haggai says, we are living in our paneled
houses. Yet the house of God lies in ruins. Trust the Lord, God says to us. Trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. He will provide for his laborers.
He will provide for his kingdom workers. He gave manna to the
Israelites. He gave water from the rock.
He spread a table in the wilderness. Their shoes did not wear out.
The moths did not eat their tunics. And so there is some sense in
the Christian laborers union, as it were, we trust God. We walk by faith. God will give
us everything we need. We do not look at things with
our human eyes, but we look through eyes of faith and we trust that
God will go before us and he will build his church through
the wealth of his kingdom and he can provide. There’s a fourth
thing this passage teaches us. Not only prayer, Not only going,
not only trusting the Lord, but a fourth thing, stay focused,
stay focused. We find that in the second part
of verse four, and it comes to us in a very odd way. When Jesus
says to the disciples, carry no money, no knapsack, no sandals.
He also says, greet no one on the road. Well, in the ancient
Near East, if two Jewish men passed each other, they would
stop, they would hug, they would kiss each other’s cheeks. And
on and on this would go as they spoke peace to one another, as
they shared prayers to Yahweh for one another. And this greeting
could take 15, 20, 30 minutes. It depended on how much kissing
and hugging and handshaking and Praise be to God and bless you
and keep you went on. And you can you can imagine this.
It may be quite comedic in some ways. And Jesus is saying, keep
on going, stay focused. And this applies so well to us
in ministry today. When I came through seminary
and did my ministry training and was ordained, there were
no iPhones. I don’t even think flip phones
were out. I really didn’t know what a computer
was. I went to seminary, I hand wrote every note on notebook
paper. If you go into my junk room, you’ll see about 30 notebooks
full of notes. No computers, no gadgets, no
idiot boxes, no distractions. Oh today, you’ve got a phone
that buzzes, you have a watch that buzzes, you have things
in your ears, you have things in your pockets, the computer,
the everything. We’re so distracted and that’s
just technology. This is a very distracting world.
Any of us who sit here today who’ve lived a few decades, we
understand this world is yelling at us constantly for our attention. And Jesus is saying, stay focused,
be steadfast, keep your eye on the ball, keep your eye on the
prize. The goal is missions. And it’s not just technology
that can get our attention, it’s doing the wrong things. How many
of us have done a job or been to work, but never accomplished
the task we were set out to do. We are glorious time wasters
here in the United States, but also we are enamored with the
world. Don’t you think the television,
commercial producers and writers, they’ve got it figured out. They
probably sit back in their offices and cackle with their heads kicked
back saying, these people are easy to get their attention.
We can tell them they need a new car when they have one that’s
two years old. We can tell them they need the latest phone because
a seven is better than an eight is better than a seven or whatever
the case may be. We are daily bombarded with advertisements
that create dissatisfaction. We become thankless and unhappy
and we want more and we become distracted. distracted from the
work of the kingdom that God has given us. Stay focused, Jesus
says. I don’t know if any of you are
reading this month’s Table Talk. It’s the Field Guide from the
Abyss. It’s a handbook on how Satan’s
underlings tempt the church to walk away from Jesus. And one
of the great ways that Jesus people are attracted away or
distracted away from the work of the kingdom is Satan just
distracts us. He gives us a smorgasbord. He
gives us a buffet. He knows we love buffets. This
morning in Sunday school, when we’re asking some of y’all where
you like to eat, I’ve heard buffet, buffet, buffet. Satan knows that. And he knows that it just has
to be shiny and colorful. And whatever he offers, you just
say, hmm, I want a plate full of that and that and that. And
you know how it is we go to the buffet. Our eyes are bigger than our
stomachs. And we walk back to our table, and we look like the
biggest gluttons in the world. Satan’s got us figured out, doesn’t
he? He knows how to distract us. And Jesus is saying, stay
focused. The latest gimmicks are not the
way to do church. Stay focused. The latest self-help
book is not the gospel. Stay focused. people’s attention
spans or their heart’s desires may not be what God desires for
them. And so Jesus says to these 72, he says to us, the old paths
are way better than worldly cares and keep your eyes on the mission
of the gospel. Well, there’s a fifth thing that
this passage teaches us. In addition to prayer, in addition
to going and trusting the Lord and staying focused, he tells
these 72 and he’s telling us, be content. Verse six and seven
give us this message. Verse six says, and if a son
of peace is there in that house, your peace will rest upon him.
But if not, it will return to you, remain in the same house,
eating and drinking what they provide for the labor deserves
his wages. Do not go from house to house. Oh, isn’t it just like the disciples? Maybe to get together on their
little road trip for Jesus. And they get together out in
the city square after a day of ministry. And one of them says
at the house I’m staying in, there’s a 50 inch TV. We’ve only
got a 32 inch at our house. Well, there’s only water to drink
at our house. There’s pretty good wine over
at my place. And can’t you imagine the disciples?
We need to do a little roommate swapping around here. That’s
the way we are, isn’t it? That’s the way the disciples
are. And Jesus is saying, look, if you’re going to be single
minded and focused, go to a house, take their hospitality if it’s
a place of peace. And quit worrying about the size
of television or the number of channels or the water or the
wine or the food or the cereal or the choices. He’s saying,
be content with what God has given you as you labor in the
kingdom. And God has provided through
this hospitality that you are now receiving in a minister’s
call, the terms of the call that the church promises to obligate
to the minister, read and approved at Presbytery. Most in every
Presbyterian denomination I’m aware of in America say this,
we, the undersigned of this body of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
do promise so that you may undertake this ministry in our midst and
be free of worldly care. promise to provide this to you.
And that phrase that’s in there is so that you may be free of
worldly care as you do your ministry. Can you imagine if a minister
had to have four or five jobs? He couldn’t do the great work
of the ministry that is in front of him. Could you imagine if
a minister was distracted by all sorts of things that kept
him from doing the work of the ministry? It’s why for so many
years in America, ministers lived in mansions. They didn’t have
to climb on the roof and clean the gutters. They didn’t have
to put in a new furnace. They were free from worldly care.
And I think it has really shifted this day and age. So many ministers
have wanted houses and That can be a wonderful thing, but it
can be a burden of a thing, too. And so so many ministers in America
now are not free from worldly care, I don’t think. But Jesus
is saying to Christian disciples, he’s saying to us, he’s saying
to ministers, you’ve got to be content. If you’re not content,
you’re going to be flitting around from house to house, place to
place, looking for better provisions. Be content. Well, the last thing
this passage teaches us, you’ve got to discern the people. You must discern the people.
We find this in verse five and six and then verse eight. And
then in verses 10 and 12 in verses five and six, we read this, whatever
house you enter first, say peace be to this house. And if a son
of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not,
it will return to you. Skip down to verse eight. Whenever
you enter a town and they receive you eat, what is set before you.
And then in verses 10 through 12, Whenever you enter a town
and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say,
even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off
against you. Nevertheless, know this, that
the kingdom of God has come near. I tell you, Jesus says, it will
be more bearable. on that day for Sodom than for
that town. Jesus is calling the disciples
to discern the people. As you preach the gospel, there
are two responses. People will accept it or they
will reject it. You’ll have hospitality as you
enter town to town, or they will tell you to get on out of here
and stay somewhere else. Jesus had just experienced that
in one of the Sumerian towns we read of in weeks past. You
know, some people think, they get it in their head, boy, Christian
ministry looks easy. Yeah, Christian ministry looks
easy if you’re a minister and you work only on Sundays and
you play golf as the old joke goes. But Christian ministry
as a pastor and Christian ministry, I think, especially as a missionary,
whether it’s on a college campus or in a foreign place, it is
not rosy. It is not easy. Think of Isaiah’s
call to ministry. God in Isaiah chapter six calls
him to ministry and he says, who will go? Isaiah says, I’ll
go send me. And God says to him, you’re going
to go preach, but people aren’t going to hear. You’re going to
go preach and people aren’t going to see. You’re going to go preach
and people are going to reject you. They’re going to throw things
at you. In fact, if you read the history
of the lives of the prophets of Israel and of many Christian
servants, they were mistreated. They were rejected. They were
greatly harmed in life and in ministry by people who rejected
him. Ministry is never rosy. Guess
why? Well, remember the question,
what’s wrong with the world? We are, I am, you’re dealing with
people. One of the great Christian principles
that I think we ought to learn as God’s people, it’s important
to learn as a minister of the gospel, is when you proclaim
the good news of salvation, when you are evangelizing others and
they reject your presentation. And I have to remember this very
often in ministry, people aren’t rejecting me, I’ve got nothing
to offer. They’re rejecting Christ. They’re rejecting the one who
has sent us, the one who has said, pray, go, trust, stay focused,
be content. He’s also saying discern the
people. They will accept and they will reject. They will treat
you with great harm is the way many Christians over the centuries
have experienced it. And so we need to discern. We
need to discern how God’s word is received. Well, what’s wrong
with the world? Would you write in the answer?
I am. I hope that you would, knowing your theology, knowing
what we are to believe to be true. But I hope we would also
see the power of the gospel, that Jesus makes all things new.
And he has put a down payment in each of us who’ve come to
him by faith. He’s made us new creations. The
old is gone, the new has come. We’re living new creation lives. The way we live, the way we serve,
the way we act is new creation living. What’s wrong with the
world? It needs us to go. It needs us
to send and it needs us to pray. It needs us to stay focused.
It needs us to trust the Lord and to be content and discern
the people. And so we could ask the question,
what’s wrong with the world? And we could answer it. But here’s
the question for us today. Are we part of the solution?
Let us pray together. Our Lord and God, we thank you
and bless you for this passage, this Messages, these encouragements
to the 72 and even to us this day, we pray, Lord, that we would
take stock of our lives, that we would consider our ways, our
priorities, our values, our prayer life. We would consider what
makes our heart beat and see if it doesn’t match what makes
your heart beat. Oh, Lord, there’s a lost and
dying world. It needs laborers to go in that. field and to make
harvest. Lord, help us to do our part
for the sake of your glorious name and for the sake of the
lost who can receive your mercy and your love. Hear us now as
we pray in Jesus name. Amen.