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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Basically, you know, goodwill relations.
And as they're on the road, they get ambushed.
And they're flanked on three sides by insurgents.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And here are my simple instructions for you.
First thing we see there in verse two,
pray.
Pray.
Why?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And yet you're going forth with the kingdom.
Verses five and six is a beautiful picture
of what they hope to encounter.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So they were to pray.
They were to go.
The third part under instructions.
They were to declare.
Look at verse nine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pray.
Do you care to pray?
What do we pray for?
Parents, do you teach your children to pray
and that it's important?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
With siblings who seem to have everything in their lives
set against you smiling ever?
We go from small places.
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.
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.
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.
They're pretty simple.
Pray, go, declare.
Be a taste of the kingdom.
Be conscious of the people around you.
Souls around you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
And this section gives a stark warning to two groups of people.
The first group being the unrepentant.
And the second group being the repentant.
To the unrepentant,
let's define repentance.
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.
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?
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.
Repentance is something different than just naming the fact that you've sinned.
Repentance is actually actively striving against that sin.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A town of peace will accept you.
They will show hospitality to the kingdom of God.
And then he compares it to Sodom.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And then the fulfillment
of all of the Old Testament prophecies
came to them.
And they pushed it away.
It's funny.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And the binary choice is this.
Are you motivated by Christ?
Or are you motivated by yourself?
What motivates you?
To put it in a different way,
are you motivated
from the outside in?
Or are you motivated
from the inside out?
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.
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.
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.
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.
This thing of
wiping the dust
off of your feet
is not a pre-cross thing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
It is judgment.
That's the end result.
people come flying
down that hill
all the time.
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.
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.
And that's a terrifying
terrifying thought.
And you're not left there.
you're not meant
to be left there.
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.
It's proof of him
saying one more time
this is serious.
The end result
is very,
very serious.
I love you.
Embrace
my kingdom.
Come to me
the way
that I am coming
towards you
because I want you
to be there.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Do I trust that?
Listen to me.
Your name
is written
in heaven.
Fear
does not
have to be
the answer.
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.
Fighting our battles
for us
so that we may
be his righteousness.
That's a great
thing to be able
to trust in.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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