[0:00] You are listening to a message from Southwood Presbyterian Church in Huntsville, Alabama. Our passion is to experience and express grace. Join us.
[0:12] Good morning. If you have your Bibles, take them and open them up. We'll be in Luke chapter 10 this morning. We're going to continue on with our series in Luke.
[0:34] If you remember, Will last week preached on a couple of things from Luke chapter 9, the rejection that the disciples face as they went forward with the message of gospel truth to the Samaritan city that wanted nothing at all to do with Jesus.
[0:52] And then he discussed in a roundabout way the reality of what should be of first importance to us as his followers, as he saw many say, I want to follow you.
[1:04] And he said, okay, let's do it. And they said, well, I have to do something else first. So that really laid the groundwork well for how we're moving this week as we discuss what is the mission that Jesus is calling these people to.
[1:21] He had to be serious about it. Jesus is getting pretty intense. He understands what is on the threshold for him and what is the fight that's set before his disciples and his followers.
[1:35] So let me pray for us. We have a lot of text this morning. We're going to cover chapter 10, verses 1 through 24. So I'm going to try to break it down into a couple different segments. But before I do, let's pray.
[1:46] Father, we desperately need you. You've given us your word, your communication to little minds of the great things that you are about, of your perfect love and your perfect character, your perfect joy and your perfect happiness, and the gift of your son to ungrateful people like us.
[2:16] We pray that we would sense the reality of your mission. We pray that we would sense anew the nearness of your kingdom as we hear about your son and read about him working in the world and using people, little human vessels as actual agents in the world to bring about your kingdom in it.
[2:48] I pray for myself as I'm not fit to preach this. So I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts would be glorifying to you.
[2:59] And I pray that we would be open, as Ron said, to the message that you are bringing of hope and of salvation. In the name, the great name of your son, our King Jesus. Amen.
[3:17] Military things run in my family. My grandfather always said that I should have gone to the military before going to college. He was right. I did not. But I'm interested when I see stories, and a lot of them these days are tragic.
[3:32] I was reading one recently of Army Captain William Swenson. He's a Medal of Honor winner, and he and an Army partner of his were assisting an Afghan security team, as well as 12 Marines and a Navy corpsman.
[3:51] And they were doing a walk to a location that was about 10 miles outside of Pakistan in Afghanistan. I can't pronounce the name of the town, so I'm not going to try. And as they were walking, the intention was to go and meet with the town's leaders, to have some tea with them, and discuss what it would look like to assist them in rebuilding a mosque that was there.
[4:14] Basically, you know, goodwill relations. And as they're on the road, they get ambushed. And they're flanked on three sides by insurgents.
[4:27] And Captain Swenson called for backup, but they declined him. The forward base Joyce that was there on that side of Afghanistan declined it, saying they were too close to a civilian population, and they couldn't provide them with anything.
[4:39] So here's this man and his partner who were kind of in charge of this mixed force of people getting ambushed and in the midst of a giant firefight.
[4:50] And the story of Captain Swenson is nothing less than amazing, because this guy's love and passion for his men, and even the people that weren't his men, was unmatched on that day as he ran to the front over and over again, pulling back men who were dead, pulling back men who were wounded, constantly putting himself in harm's way to try to execute the retreat.
[5:17] And he fought for hours. He was trained for war, but the Afghans and the Marines and the Navy Corpsmen around him desperately needed his leadership in this situation.
[5:29] And with all he could muster, he fought, and he loved, and he tried. He tried to save. With where we are in our text here with Jesus, his intensity and his intention is really starting to peak.
[5:45] He knows the road laid out before him, and he needs to equip his followers in the fight for eternity. The idolatry of self-motivation that Ron was speaking of earlier needs to be replaced by being motivated by Christ.
[6:02] And hopefully our text today will help us understand what it meant for the followers of Christ in Luke 10, as well as what it means for us to be able to declare the kingdom of God is near.
[6:16] You see a three-point outline on your bulletin, and I've broken it down to three sections. The instructions will try to cover verses 1 through 9 of Luke 10.
[6:27] So look down at your text or look on the screen behind me as I read. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others. After this meaning, after what Will preached on last week, there doesn't seem to be a time break there.
[6:40] We're just moving right along. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he was about to go.
[6:50] And he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray. Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
[7:03] Go your way. Behold, I'm sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. That's good news. Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.
[7:16] 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'll return to you, better news.
[7:27] And remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever 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.
[7:42] Heal the sick in it and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. 72 are sent out, two by two.
[7:53] Fairly customary in that time, two by two for multiple reasons, not the least of which, two people constituted a valid witness. So they're sent two by two out to go to places that Jesus is going to go.
[8:06] And he gives them the authority of himself. When they are going, they are going as him. It doesn't make you feel great when you're these people.
[8:17] You may remember I preached a few weeks ago on when he sent the 12 out and told them, hey, good news for you too. You're going to be fighting demons and stuff like that in my name. No, you're not prepared for it.
[8:29] But it's what's going to happen. The fight is real. Your day-to-day lives are over. You've been called by me. You are followers of me.
[8:40] And this is where we're headed. And he tells this group, don't take money. Don't take a backpack. Don't take sandals. And that doesn't mean they can't wear sandals. It means don't take an extra pair of sandals.
[8:51] Don't carry things with you. Don't even talk to people while you're going there. It's urgent. We need to get there. We need to do this. There were itinerant preachers that preached any number of things that would carry around their knapsacks and money because they were trying to raise money for themselves.
[9:07] And he's saying, no, you're not going to go with anything like that. You're going to go and simply bring the shalom, the peace of God to these people. And sons of peace will respond with that. Those who are not sons of peace will not respond to that.
[9:22] And here are my simple instructions for you. First thing we see there in verse two, pray. Pray. Why?
[9:34] Because the harvest is many, but the laborers are few. Sending out 72 of you, we need the laborers to be multiplied. Pray. You can't go forward on your own.
[9:47] Pray. It focuses you on the things of mine and of the kingdom, the nearness that you're bringing forth to people. Pray. In verses three through eight, he goes on to discuss several things that have to do with going.
[10:06] Go your way. Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. There's not encouraging news. Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, and don't talk to anybody.
[10:18] That'll take too long. When you get to the house, tell them peace is with them. And whatever they put in front of you, eat it.
[10:28] This is a little bit counter-cultural. What's happening in verse four? You have your lambs going out in the midst of wolves. Talk about having to trust God and trust Jesus.
[10:41] That doesn't come naturally. I'm afraid that most of us don't know the everyday reality of the chance of being killed or something of the sort for going out.
[10:52] And Jesus may be talking about that, but he's more than likely talking about their need to rely upon him and the dangers that they'll face as they go out to be self-sufficient, as Ron was talking about.
[11:06] I talked about how it was counter-cultural for them to not have anything with them. This doesn't make sense. They're going to be dirty. They're going to be smelly. If a sandal breaks, you leave it on the road. You don't have an extra pair.
[11:16] And yet you're going forth with the kingdom. Verses five and six is a beautiful picture of what they hope to encounter.
[11:31] When you say, peace be with you, if a son of peace in there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it'll return to you.
[11:43] Peace resting upon someone is not that you walked in and suddenly they were transformed. It was that the kingdom of God, that they're there to proclaim the nearness of the kingdom of God, is being taken by them and embraced in the heart.
[11:59] They're embracing the kingdom of God. And people who don't embrace the kingdom of God will reject them. And he tells them, you're going to be rejected.
[12:12] It's going to happen. My sovereignty works in both of these ways. In seven and eight, he talks about eating whatever is set before you.
[12:24] The dietary restrictions of the Jews is pretty significant. These people didn't eat certain things, but they were ministering in an area where you had Gentiles and Jews around each other.
[12:36] It was hard to tell where you were going to go as you walked into different houses and different towns. And Jesus says something that was probably a little bit mind-blowing to some of them. Whatever they put in front of you, eat it.
[12:49] The fulfillment is happening in front of them. The fulfillment of the Old Testament law. Foods are clean. You can eat it. You're on a bigger mission right now. You're on a mission to bring my kingdom near to these people.
[13:03] So they were to pray. They were to go. The third part under instructions. They were to declare. Look at verse nine. Healing.
[13:13] Healing. Heal the sick in it. And say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. Healing. It's a big deal.
[13:26] We don't do that a lot nowadays. We pray for it. We've seen it miraculously happen recently in our congregation with Michael Calhoun. But generally speaking, there's not a lot of average people walking up to somebody and healing them.
[13:43] It was the same back then. And here you have average people coming and healing people in the name of Jesus and declaring to them through that, the kingdom has come near to you.
[13:55] This is a hard passage to relate to you and I because most of these things just aren't us. We're not granted similar authority as is granted here to these or to the apostles in chapter nine or to what we see in Acts, Luke-Acts being one volume.
[14:17] That's not what we're called to do. But what are we called to do? What's the difference between the two things? Well, I can assure you these instructions still make absolute sense to us.
[14:30] Pray. Do you care to pray? What do we pray for? Parents, do you teach your children to pray and that it's important?
[14:43] Empty nesters, now that your kids are out of the house, do you still pray? Husbands and wives, do you pray together? Singles, do you pray? That's your first question.
[14:55] Do we even do it? Then the question is for what? What are we praying for? Kingdom nearness is a big deal to Jesus in this section and hopefully it becomes a bigger deal to us throughout the morning right now.
[15:15] But are you praying for you and for things that are motivated by you? Or are we praying for things that are brought on our hearts by the message of Jesus Christ?
[15:28] The urgency of the end is now. And you don't have to be someone suffering from a terminal disease to understand that and be convicted by that.
[15:38] And to Jesus, he's drawing our attention to that. The end, the kingdom being big. Colossians tells us that Jesus is bringing and reconciling all things to the Father.
[15:56] That's what he's doing through everything that we do. Pray to that end. What does it look like for you to participate in that? What does it look like for your children to participate in that?
[16:11] How do we think bigger than ourselves about the work that Christ is doing? But there's an obvious thing here that the go is less go for most of us.
[16:23] Some of us do go to other places, like hungry for nine years and serve with your family. But a lot of us are just going to be called to work tomorrow morning.
[16:35] Or going to be called to lunch with some friends, maybe to small group tonight. The go for most of us has already happened. We're already living the go all the time.
[16:50] How do we pray that the go we've been called to would impact the kingdom? What does that look like for me and for you on a day-to-day basis?
[17:01] I get paid to do it. But it's still hard. I don't remember to pray for these things. I have day-to-day activities.
[17:12] I have things, people I need to meet. Boxes I need to check off on a list. I'm the one being paid for kingdom activity. We're all called to it, though.
[17:27] And we're sent and we're already going. What are we doing in those moments? What does it look like for you to declare peace at work with your boss who's a jerk, with a fellow employee who's being put down, at home with relatives who don't get along and who actively seem to be trying to destroy your family?
[17:54] With siblings who seem to have everything in their lives set against you smiling ever? We go from small places.
[18:07] We go to big places. And God has sent us all out for a reason, to declare his kingdom, to be a taste of the kingdom of God in the world that we live in.
[18:22] And that's the declare. Is declare every time you're in your lunch break walking to someone else and saying, here's a tract, let's talk. I'm not sure.
[18:33] I'm not sure that's the most winsome way to go about declaring the kingdom of God. I think it's actually more in the way we go. And so we have instructions.
[18:44] They're pretty simple. Pray, go, declare. Be a taste of the kingdom. Be conscious of the people around you. Souls around you.
[18:56] Because the warnings are stark. And let's go into those now. The warnings in chapter 10. We'll be reading verses 10 through 20. Whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, and this isn't randomly running up and down streets.
[19:18] It's go to the main part of town 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.
[19:31] That's bad news now. The kingdom of God has come near and you've rejected us. You've rejected it. I tell you, it'll be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
[19:43] Woe to you, Shorzene. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
[19:55] But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will be exalted to heaven? No, I don't think so. You'll be brought down to Hades.
[20:08] The one who hears you, hears me. And the one who rejects you, rejects me. And the one who rejects me, rejects him who sent me.
[20:20] And the 72 went out. And the 72 returned with joy saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
[20:33] Behold, I've given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. And nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you.
[20:47] But rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And this section gives a stark warning to two groups of people.
[20:59] The first group being the unrepentant. And the second group being the repentant. To the unrepentant, let's define repentance.
[21:11] Because I think a lot of times we conflate repentance with confession. We're happy to get together with our accountability group, or with another group of people, or something of the sort, and say, hey, I did this thing.
[21:29] And most of those guys or girls love you, and they say, I'm so sorry. Hey, I'm thinking about the chicken salad. Have you had that here?
[21:40] Is that good? We throw it out into the ether as though telling one another that we're sinners is going to be the end of it.
[21:53] Repentance is something different than just naming the fact that you've sinned. Repentance is actually actively striving against that sin.
[22:05] Primarily by turning to Christ. Your sin is not supposed to leave you with guilt and wallowing in shame. It's supposed to turn you towards your Savior. That's the primary action.
[22:20] I think Westminster Confession is helpful with this because it says, oh, by the way, saying that you've turned towards the Savior should probably be followed up by you actively doing that.
[22:30] You've been given grace to do that. Repentance is turning from your sin to Christ and then striving by all the grace given to you to continue on that path away from sin.
[22:48] So to the unrepentant, it's not embracing kingdom nearness in the heart. And it's a difficult thing to see here because we all know what we think of when we hear some of these names.
[23:13] But the declaration has been made. They entered the town and they weren't received. So they said, even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you.
[23:24] Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near. They came near. It came near. And they were rejected. Then he goes through all the cities.
[23:35] I'll tell you, it'll be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. That town is a random town. He's just giving them instructions as to what they're to do when they are rejected.
[23:47] But he's talking about in this whole passage, hospitality. You're entering the town. You declare the kingdom. A son of peace will accept you.
[23:58] A town of peace will accept you. They will show hospitality to the kingdom of God. And then he compares it to Sodom.
[24:08] And I think most of us, when we think of Sodom, think of one particular sin. And this passage is laying out relatively clearly that that sin is only the tip of the iceberg of the problem.
[24:25] Because Sodom actually didn't embrace the kingdom as it came near. And that's the bigger problem. But the comparison here is not necessarily apples to apples because Sodom is not a city who knew the nearness of King Jesus and his followers who had been authoritatively sent forth.
[24:49] We see the other comparisons. Shorazin and Bethsaida. Mighty works have been done in each of you. These are Galilean towns that Jesus and his disciples have been in doing this crazy healing stuff.
[25:05] Preaching the kingdom. Casting demons out. Stuff you just don't see every day. And those towns said, no. We don't want any part of this.
[25:19] And then he goes to the big one, Capernaum. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You'll be brought down to Hades. That is not something you want Jesus saying about you because he's serious.
[25:35] This isn't Jesus telling you to go to hell. This is Jesus declaring that rejection of the kingdom results in your judgment. The warnings are stark because these people have been taught the promises of God through their religion for a long time.
[25:57] And then the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophecies came to them. And they pushed it away. It's funny.
[26:07] As I was looking at this, it's not funny, but as I was looking at this, I couldn't help but think to myself, man, does that sound like us. Man, does that sound like people I know in Huntsville.
[26:22] It's in the air here. We've all, there are churches everywhere. We have giant, massive churches on this street, right down the street, over on Whitesburg. There's gonna be another one put right across the street from us.
[26:35] The gospel is here and being taught and teached in many different ways and proclaimed around our city. And yet, it makes me wonder, has it ever been embraced from the heart?
[26:51] For all of you tennis fans, Federer won in straight sets this morning. For all of you who aren't tennis fans, you may have heard of another guy called Bernard Tomic.
[27:01] He is an Australian player who was actually born, I think, in Croatia and now lives in Monaco. I don't know how these things work. His name is Bernard Tomic. And after losing in the first round of Wimbledon on the 6th, July 6th, this was the quote he gave to a reporter afterwards.
[27:17] This might sound familiar after you hear it. I couldn't care less if I make a fourth round at the US Open or if I lose in the first round. To me, everything is the same. I'm going to play another 10 years and I know that after my career, I won't have to work again.
[27:32] He's 24. Even with losing in the first round at Wimbledon, he's ranked 59th in the world. He was as high as 17th last year. And catch this, playing tennis, he's won $5,142,239 in career prize money by being 168 and 153.
[27:54] Average 500 tennis player, 59th in the world. Don't get me wrong, that's incredible as far as skill level goes. But this guy is not playing from a passionate place with tennis.
[28:07] He has a skill that he's honed and he's working from the outside in. He's been making, I think he turned pro in 2008, nine years, $5 million, he's been making about $570,000 a year.
[28:18] It's an okay living, playing a game, right? He's got sponsors. Well, he lost one sponsor after the statement. But he has sponsors that pay him.
[28:32] Idolatry takes many forms for us. But sin is a result primarily of a binary choice. You heard Ron talk about earlier and I'm going to talk about now.
[28:45] And the binary choice is this. Are you motivated by Christ? Or are you motivated by yourself? What motivates you?
[28:59] To put it in a different way, are you motivated from the outside in? Or are you motivated from the inside out?
[29:12] And I think that's an important question for people like us who have been raised in and around the church and the gospel to ask ourselves. Because a lot of us have no problem going to church on Sunday morning, 12 or 13 times a year.
[29:27] A lot of us have no problem being members of a church because we're in the south and if you're not a member of the church, that's a problem. We don't have a problem passing the peace of Christ on to each other because we don't.
[29:41] We send our kids to Christian school, we do all of the right things that we're supposed to do because that's how we've been brought up. Nothing wrong with being brought up that way, by the way.
[29:52] We're charged to bring our children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But at some point it gets to a reality line where we become consumers of the Christian faith as opposed to those who are driven by the reality of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and in our lives.
[30:09] This thing of wiping the dust off of your feet is not a pre-cross thing.
[30:20] This is the same thing that happens to Paul and Barnabas at the end of Acts 13. They have a successful time in the synagogues in Antioch and the people want to hear more and they want to hear more and you know what happens.
[30:34] They're so on fire for the gospel that the Jewish people who run the town work up a lot of people against Paul who are also Jewish people and they go to kick Paul and Barnabas out of the town.
[30:50] And the same phrase appears. Paul and Barnabas dusted their feet off and said, we tried to come to you with the gospel and now we're going to those who don't know it because you've not embraced the kingdom from the heart.
[31:06] and we do other things like think that if we get rid of a petty sin or if we live just in a certain way that that will also show people that we're better than them.
[31:21] I think that's where the idea of Sodom comes in as a very poignant thing for us because in our minds the one sin we associate with Sodom is reprobate in our eyes and we would never participate in it and we would never condone people who do and we are better than them.
[31:38] And it doesn't stop there. It goes across the board with whatever your thing is. I don't smoke. I don't chew. I don't go with girls who do. Whatever the little thing is that you're better than somebody else about is an idol that you are trying to improve yourself on.
[31:53] I have them. I guarantee you, you have them. And the question is not do they exist inside of us? The question is what motivates you towards that?
[32:05] Is it because you need to look good from the outside or is it because Christ in you is actively pushing you against sin which should result in some humility when dealing with a situation like that?
[32:18] haughtiness from the outside is a completely different thing. And if you walk into church every Sunday or every other Sunday or whenever you can get here woe be unto you if you're not embracing the kingdom from the heart.
[32:37] if you hear the message over and over again and your heart is cold and your heart is stone and you're not turned to the one who came to save you it's terrible news.
[32:58] It is judgment. That's the end result. people come flying down that hill all the time.
[33:13] Terrible results can happen like that. And all of a sudden you're there to what Jesus is intense and fighting for and equipping his people for eternity.
[33:29] Because you can fool me and you can fool the people around you. You can fool the people at work who think you're pious and that you're good. But if your motivation is from the outside in you have no place with our Heavenly Father.
[33:51] And that's a terrifying terrifying thought. And you're not left there. you're not meant to be left there.
[34:03] The fact that you're here today hearing a message about the gospel of Jesus Christ is proof of God's love for you. It's proof of his pursuit of you.
[34:15] It's proof of him saying one more time this is serious. The end result is very, very serious.
[34:29] I love you. Embrace my kingdom. Come to me the way that I am coming towards you because I want you to be there.
[34:42] For the repentant this says a lot of really good things. I thought it was neat to read some of the stuff that people were able to say to him when they came back. Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And then Jesus says something that's not a remembrance, it's something of a prophetic utterance or a vision.
[34:58] He says, this is happening. You went out in my name and Satan is falling from heaven. It's happening now. The fulfillment is now.
[35:09] I am conquering death. I am conquering all of this and you're a part of it. And then he reaches back into some thoughts of the Old Testament.
[35:22] I gave you authority to tread on scorpions and serpents. That's something back from Deuteronomy 9 and even if you think about serpents that can take you all the way back to what is said in Genesis 3.15 the proto-evangelium the first time that God says I'm not through with you I'm going to crush the head of the serpent and I'm going to chase you down.
[35:43] Is he chasing you down today? Hear it. This is good news. It's the beginning of the end for Satan but then the best news comes there in verse 20.
[35:57] Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this. the power of the spirits are subject to you but rejoice in the fact that your names are written in heaven. I've equipped you to fight but the battle's won for you.
[36:14] You're there. In Luther's commentary on Romans in the preface he says faith is a living daring confidence on God's grace so sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times.
[36:31] This confidence in God's grace and knowledge of it makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and all of his creatures and this is the work of the Holy Ghost in faith.
[36:43] Hence, a man is ready and glad without compulsion to do good to everyone and to serve everyone to suffer everything in love and praise God who has shown him this grace and thus it's impossible to separate works from faith quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire.
[37:02] And so the same question is posed to us who are repentant what motivates us? Is it coming outside in or inside out? It's more of a question of identity if you're repentant than it is of anything else.
[37:15] What about contentment? What does that look like? We fight for a place America man this is a great place to live Huntsville a great place in America to live. you can get content very quickly and the things we talked about and the instructions leave us quickly because life is kind of okay.
[37:35] My wife and I get along and our kids are insane but they're generally okay. I can be content in that. The passion for my neighbors and the passion for my work and the passion for everything God has set before me in terms of go leaves because I can be content in what I have.
[38:02] And Jesus is throwing in our faces once again no judgment is awaiting souls. Don't be content there. And then there's the idolatry of fear the special dispensations that we see given to these followers and some in Acts are not normative for us and so when things work against us we operate from a place of fear.
[38:28] And the reality of the gospel of grace is that our names are written in heaven and when things come at us on earth we've been given the Holy Spirit and Christ to stand in the gap to fight against them.
[38:41] Our sins are not inevitable. Don't hear me saying that you're perfect. That's not what I just said. I just said your sin is not inevitable.
[38:54] You can fight against it. We're not slaves to sin anymore. We've been given the power of Christ living within us. Do you trust that?
[39:05] Do I trust that? Listen to me. Your name is written in heaven. Fear does not have to be the answer.
[39:21] Hard situations come on us all the time and our faithful God the same one who pursued us and guarantees that our names are written in heaven is ready to stand in that gap for us.
[39:34] Fighting our battles for us so that we may be his righteousness. That's a great thing to be able to trust in.
[39:45] We make hard decisions all the time and we don't know what the outcome is going to be so we get paralyzed or we run away from it. And then the rest and I'll go through this quickly I'm sorry I've taken up so much of your time.
[40:02] I'm not sorry I just had to say that. Luke 10 20 through 24 it starts with that nevertheless do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subjected to you but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
[40:14] Then the Holy Spirit comes into Jesus and in that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said I thank you Father Lord of heaven and earth that you've hidden these things from the wise in understanding and revealed them to little children.
[40:30] Then the intimacy shows again he repeats his father's name 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 who the father is except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal himself and then turning to his disciples he says privately blessed are the eyes that see what you see for I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and didn't see it and to hear what you hear but they never heard it I'm going to reiterate from verse 20 it says rejoice that your names are written in heaven that is a word rejoice that can read rejoicing constantly it's a reminder to you all the time your names are written in heaven rejoice in it live in it verse 22 what does it look like to rest in the idea that you're a child of the father you're a beloved child of father god that's who you are verse 22 rest in the sovereign grace of the father
[41:55] I want to be careful to those of you who may not be feeling like you're embracing the spirit from the heart the idea of God's sovereignty is a God concept that our minds can't understand we just see it revealed to us in places like this in scripture if you if you actively choose against the kingdom that is not an indemnifying thing against God's sovereignty that is against us as individuals so the question is never has God chosen you the question is a very simple one actually do you believe do you embrace the kingdom from the heart the answer is yes or no and then the explanation gets more complicated but it's as simple as starting there do you believe have you embraced the kingdom I pray that you will and then we see what time is it in history
[42:55] Jesus pulls the disciples aside and says guys you wouldn't believe the awesome folks who came before you that didn't get to see this you wouldn't believe that so after six hours of fighting Captain Swenson was still alive but three of those marines the Navy corpsmen his good friend who was the other army guy who was supervising and advising the Afghan soldiers eight of those Afghan soldiers had all died and the firefighting had ended and they'd been pulled out and there's a really interesting video which was hard to watch but it was one of the medics that came in on a medevac had a GoPro on his helmet and showed some of the action of him going in and pulling people out and then the most dominant scene to me is his partner his first he was I'm sorry I don't remember his name but at any rate he picked him up and carried him and set him on the gurney in the helicopter and just gave him a sweet kiss on the cheek and that man succumbed to his injuries a couple months later leaving a wife and three kids
[44:09] I believe behind he was set to retire a month after that it's amazing to think of the heroic nature of Captain Swenson as he went through it's no wonder he received the medal of honor we see that type of love and that type of resolve out of a man and this story is actually about the love and the resolve of the God man who came for you who died for you who rose again for you so that your name might be written in heaven so that as you approach the task of going through the instructions of praying and going and declaring that's coming from actually a place of rest resting in the reality of who you are be a child of God and I pray that all of us when we go out of here today can be willing to declare that the kingdom is near that it's come near and that
[45:18] Jesus is coming again pray with me and let's finish up father god we are grateful and humbled by your words I pray that you would bless the going forth of all of us as we leave here today troubled and confident in the love that you've shown us I pray that we would embrace your kingdom from the heart and truly move to a place of being motivated from the inside by Christ our great king in whose name we pray amen for more information visit us online at southwood.org