July 7, 2024 Luke 10:1-20 “You Biggest Opportunity!”

03 Jul July 7, 2024 Luke 10:1-20 “You Biggest Opportunity!”

July 7, 2024   Luke 10:1-20      “You Biggest Opportunity!”

I have found that as I get older, I don’t get to try out as many new things as I did when I was younger.  This is probably because there is not that much that is new to me today.  When I was twenty, everything was new.  I remember the first time I drove a self-propelled swather with a steering wheel.  It was so new to me that I almost put it in the ditch.  I’m sure that you can think of your own examples here.  Probably the most significant thing I did that was new was about 30 years ago when I gave my first sermon.  Little did I know that this would also reveal to me my need to depend on Jesus.  Moments before that sermon, I did not know if I would make it through it because I was totally afraid to speak in front of people.  All I had to do that Sunday was give the sermon.  Someone else took care of the liturgy.  I was standing by a side door with my knees shaking.  I decided to give it all to Jesus in a prayer.  The result was that I got through two services without a shake and I stand before you today.  That is just a small, minor thing that Jesus can do for you but please remember, Jesus specializes in small, minor things.  In today’s Scripture lesson, Jesus is sending out 72 people to the mission field.  We are going to find out that He is sending all of us into the mission field.  Let’s see if Jesus can show us a sure-fire way to win disciples.

Terry Dashner asks this question.  How valuable is salt?  40 million tons are required each year to fill our needs. Homer called it divine. Plato called it a “substance dear to the gods.” Shakespeare mentioned salt 17 times in his plays. Perhaps Leonard da Vinci wanted to send a subtle message about purity lost when he painted “The last Supper.” In that painting an overturned salt cellar is conspicuously placed before Judas. In ancient Greece a far-flung trade involving the exchange of salt for slaves gave rise to the expression, “…not worth his salt.” Special salt rations were given to Roman soldiers and known as “Solarium Argentums” the forerunner of the English word “salary.” Thousands of Napoleons troops died during his retreat from Moscow because their wounds would not heal–their bodies lacked salt. The human body contains about 4 oz. of salt. Without enough of it, muscles won’t contract, blood won’t circulate, food won’t digest and the heart won’t beat a beat. Without a doubt, salt is the essence of life. And Jesus said, “Ye are the salt of the earth.”

I really could not agree with this more.  As a Christian, you are the salt of the earth.  If we did not exist, think of how terrible a place this would be.  We don’t even have to imagine.  Our society for the most part has rejected God.  We like to embrace sin in its various forms as a good thing.  We like to worship anything but God.  Sometime when you see some of these wackos demonstrating for this or for that, take a look at their faces.  There is absolutely no joy.  There is no happiness.  There really isn’t anything good.

The first thing that Jesus does here is send out 72 or 70, depending on your translation, to every town in front of Him where He was going.  No where does it tell us who these people were.  They had to be followers so that they could do the task before them.  And the task was to preach or show the ways of Jesus Christ to all they could find.

We find ourselves in a similar situation today.  Every day Jesus is sending out followers to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and what He can do for you.  We don’t always know who they are but we know they are dedicated to Jesus.  It is a little different for us today because we are not called to go and stay in people’s homes.  Or are we?  I don’t know.

All we know for sure is that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  In the times of Jesus there were thousands if not millions of people who did not know the Good News of Jesus.  After all, Christianity was brand new.  It started with Jesus, then the 12 disciples and now it was the many followers, like the 72.  But no matter what, there were far, far more people waiting to know Jesus, whether they knew this or not, than there were harvesters to tell them the message.

Today, we find ourselves in a similar situation, only today we probably have billions of people waiting to hear the message.  In our country alone there are millions who do not know the message.  Many think they do but they have to remember one thing.  The only way to God and heaven is through Jesus Christ.  John 14:6 is one of the places that tell us this.  No where do we read that there are many ways to heaven.  We have whole denominations that believe that there are many ways to heaven.  Just in this country, the mission field is huge.  Then if we add the world and all of its false denominations, the number of unsaved becomes almost insurmountable.  But we also have to remember that with Jesus, anything can happen.  With Jesus nothing is insurmountable!  Also remember that He has already won the war.  We are already on the winning side.

Unfortunately, we still don’t have enough workers.  Look at all the churches we have in this country.  The estimate is something like 350-400,000 churches.  That is a lot of churches.  Now how many of them are full?  Not many.  Now there are some churches that are full.  However, more than 50% of them have far, far fewer than 50% of capacity.  We should be praying for a country where we had to build many more churches because we just didn’t have room for all the people.  That has been a prayer of mine for a long time.  And you know what?  One day it will happen whether I’m still here or not.  Jesus has happened for me and for many of you.  He has happened for a lot of people around the country.  He will happen to everyone someday.

But for now, we need to do our jobs because the workers are few.  We need to be praying about ways to reach the unsaved.  We need to develop our prayer lives so that we can withstand anything that old evil one throws at us.  We need to be at worship so that no one can become discouraged.  We need to follow the Bible as best we can.  We need to talk about Jesus where ever we go and whatever we do.  We need to talk Jesus, talk Jesus and talk Jesus.  Then when we get done, we need to talk Jesus some more.

Okay, we know that there are not that many of us.  So, Jesus sends us out into the world like sending a lamb among the wolves.  I think that this has been quite a statement over the years.  Many if not most people in our modern world, have no idea of the power of Satan.  We like to think that He is not that bad.  He really has no hold on us.  And the worst lie that we fall for is that hell is not that bad.  Please remember that everything that Satan says is a lie.  He is the worst person you will ever meet.  He is so far beyond bad that we cannot comprehend it.  You will never see your friends again in hell because there is no light in hell.  You will be isolated and you will be all alone, forever!  It should be the most terrifying place that you can imagine.  Anyway, that is what we are up against in this world as we go out into the mission field.

Notice how Jesus sends out His disciples and us in pairs.  Here are some of the reasons for doing this then and now.  We try to do this so that we can labor together, encourage each other when things don’t go so well, have counsel together, and pray together.  When things come up, we can search the Scriptures together and gain a broader understanding of the truth.  We can be accountable to each other and correct each other in the field.  We can educate others and make public witnesses.  It is also safer, then and now, to be in pairs and not alone.  Jesus is sending us out but He also wants us to be safe and give the proper message.  I’m sure you can think of many other reasons for going out in pairs.

He also tells them not to bring any money or personal items or a bag.  I think that Jesus does this so they can have their total attention on winning people over to Christ.  We have to do something like this also.  Our total concentration should be on winning people to Christ.  How often do we get sidetracked doing other things.  We have to be careful that committee work does not take the place of kingdom work.  Is everything at this service pointed at making disciples or is there some way I can improve this?  Please understand.  If you are doing something for the sake of that something, then quit doing it.  Start talking about Jesus in whatever you do.  Start doing everything for Jesus!

When they came to a town and were welcomed, they were to stay at the first house that welcomed them.  This should be pretty obvious.  Hospitality in those days was very important.  They stayed at the first house because it would not insult anyone.  Plus, they would now be ready to go to work.  They were out and about to win souls for Jesus Christ.  If they kept moving about from house to house, they would have less time to do the work.

I think that we have some of the same problems but it is not because of where we stay.  It is because of where our focus is.  For some reason, most people don’t like to talk about Jesus.  We would rather do anything than talk about Jesus.  I don’t know why this is but I see it all the time.  I see churches cutting back from 2 services to one when we should be going from 2 services to 3.  I think the reason is that churches get comfortable and they don’t want to grow and do things differently.  This is why so many churches are dying.

While I’m on the topic, the main reason churches are dying is because of very poor leadership.  Pastors refuse to make the invitation.  It is not hard to say something like this.  If you don’t know Jesus Christ, then confess you sins to Him and ask Him to live in your heart as Lord and Savior.  It is that easy.  However, many if not most, pastors will say that they are not comfortable saying this.  In other words, they are just a clanging cymbal.  They are really not doing anything and should be fired or at least put into another position.  They should not be leading a congregation because they are leading them to death, eternal death!

Then Jesus warns us.  Woe to Korazin, woe to Bethsaida!  With all the miracles that Jesus performed in these two places, everyone should have repented.  Other places would have repented.  It tells us that these two places were little stiff necked and no one was going tell them what to do.  And it sounds like Capernaum was in the same boat.  These places will not make it to heaven no matter what they think.  Please, understand that it is not if you think you will get to heaven.  It will always be what Jesus thinks.  There will be no sin in heaven and that is all there is to be said about that.  You must repent of your sins!

One more thing here.  Jesus tells the disciples that whoever listens to you, listens to me.  He who rejects you, rejects me.  And whoever rejects me, rejects the one who sent me.  This is just a real hard warning for all of us.  You cannot go around thinking what you want about Jesus and His message.  His message is not open to interpretation.  It is what it is.  When you start to try to change what God has given us in this book, that is when the doors for the place down below will begin to open and wait for you.  This is very serious stuff with serious consequences.

So, Jesus gives these directions and sends out the 72.  He sends you out.  And what happens?  They returned with great joy!  Even the demons submitted to them.  They had started out as just regular people and they came back empowered by the Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  We cannot blame them for this and I don’t think that Jesus does either.

Have you ever done what you were supposed to do according to Jesus?  The excitement is great when you get done.  It’s a feeling of joy, peace and satisfaction that I cannot even begin to describe as it is too wonderful.  It happens to me just about every week when I finish writing a sermon.  Jesus writes my sermons.  I am not nearly smart or good enough to write a sermon.  But Jesus just leads me and the next thing I know, I’m done.  Do what Jesus tells you and you will get the biggest and best reward of your life.

Jesus then tells us that you are not to rejoice that the evil spirits do what you tell them.  He has seen it all and He sees and knows that Satan loses.  It is not that big a deal to Him because He beat Satan very badly at the cross.  That is what we have to remember.  Jesus has already won.  Just do as He tells you and you will end up with Him for eternity.

Instead, Jesus tells us to rejoice that this will happen.  Your name is written in heaven.  I’m sure that if you look around your life you will see many people who have their names in the book of life.  This is what we should be jumping for joy about. This is something to celebrate.  But what about the many people you know who will not be in heaven.  Or there are many people who you know who have followed the wrong leader and now the think they are going to heaven but they are not.  I’m here to tell you today, that the mission field is great.

But, and praise the Lord, you are one of the workers and you know people who need to know Jesus.  Take the opportunity to be extra nice to someone.  Be nice to that someone who does not have many friends, or is on the outside socially looking in, or someone who is just a little different than everyone else.  Take your time but let them know just what Jesus has done for you.  Then tell them or show them that Jesus will do that for them also.  Jesus does not just love people; He loves all the people including the lost.  Help them to find Jesus and your life will be immensely blest.  Do this today or tomorrow but definitely this week.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.