Start Small: Pray • Luke 10:1-16
52:46 Teaching begins
Notes
Today Jesus commissions more disciples to join Him in His work. These disciples already follow Him, they already believe in Him. Now He increases their involvement in His work, His life, His message, His authority.
We might hear that Jesus is calling people to work with Him and say, “I think You mean somebody else.” It’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Living things begin small and grow from there. Jesus has a small way for you to begin to work with Him.
You pray for Him to do what He wants to do.
I’m reading in Luke chapter 10, beginning with verse 1.
1. Jesus prepares His way to Jerusalem.
A. Remember that He has set His face to go to Jerusalem. He is following the Father, He is pursuing His calling to the end.
B. Jesus prepares for as big a public splash as possible.
1. He is going to be offered for the sin of the world in Jerusalem, fulfilling the feast of Passover. It will be absolutely public. Devout Jews from all over the world will be there and they will see and know about Jesus.
2. Evidently He has mapped out His route to Jerusalem. There are at least 35 places He will visit on the way. Possible some teams will visit several places. This is going to be a public journey.
C. For this reason He appoints seventy other disciples and sends them out in pairs, to every city and place where He plans to go.
2. Jesus describes this sending out as harvesting, gathering in a crop. This isn’t just one aspect of Jesus’ work, this is the whole work Jesus is doing.
A. Harvesting is the last process of farming. You plow, sow seed, weed, water, at the end of the season you gather it in. It’s the return of your work and patience. Harvest is the fruit, the reward, the purpose why you started in the first place.
B. The harvest Jesus refers to is the end of the age. This is why God began the creation in the first place, to lead to the fruit, the result.
1. Men and women saved from sin, transformed, glorified, and knowing God, which is eternal life.
2. Angels knowing God. They’re always watching, always learning God by experience.
3. At the harvest God will judge the fruit. He will judge men, He will judge angels. Does this person express His goodness or does this person express the devil? All the good will be brought in, the worthless will be thrown away.
C. The whole purpose of God can be summed up in this word, harvest.
D. So Jesus is involved directly in God’s purpose, and He’s calling others to be involved as well in this highest purpose.
3. Jesus tells his labourers that they’re headed into conflict.
A. First of all, there aren’t enough labourers.
1. It’s almost a contradiction: there is a huge harvest, but the labourers are few.
2. It’s the harvest of the world. How could there not be enough labourers? You’re sending me? How could you not be intimidated by that? Pastors and missionaries face this daily. Go save the world. Really? Me? All by myself?
B. So Jesus lays down a principle to deal with that: you pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.
1. Where are those labourers going to come from? Jesus is saying this to people who already follow Him. He’s calling them into His work. They started following Him, He keeps drawing them in to following closer, doing more work for Him. Becoming more like Him.
2. Those who hear His sent-out disciples will follow and get involved in the work. You’re the harvest, now go and harvest some more.
3. The Lord answers the prayer for more labourers by raising up converts who begin serving the Lord. Another name for this is discipleship. Jesus is always going to be doing this. So this is a prayer that we’ll always be praying.
C. But there’s another conflict: Jesus has enemies.
1. I’m sending you out as sheep among wolves. You are defenceless. They have teeth and eat sheep.
2. Jesus has enemies that strive to kill him and thwart His harvest. They hate God. These are spiritual forces of wickedness that blind the minds of unbelievers so they can’t see the glory of God in the face of Jesus.
3. In Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
D. Jesus has to deal with enemies, so will those who follow Him.
1. If you know you’re going to be facing wolves you want to careful how you live. Be aware, keep your eyes open. Don’t be surprised when there is conflict.
2. Just like you pray to the Lord of the harvest for more labourers, you pray to the Lord of hosts to cover your head in the day of battle. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.
4. These sent-out ones are to be focused on Jesus’ business.
A. They don’t need to provide for themselves. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.
B. Don’t carry extra money with you, don’t carry a bag with your stuff in it. You won’t need your possessions on this trip. It’s extra weight that you will never use. Ever packed too much? You wonder, “What was I thinking, that I needed all this stuff? This suitcase is too much.”
C. Don’t bog down greeting people. You run into someone and you begin a polite conversation asking about the family and how are their distant relations, and then you talk about the weather. Don’t go small. You have a big purpose, you need to be about your Lord’s business, the harvest.
5. They are to receive help from like-minded people who are at peace with God.
A. When they go to a house they are to bless the house with peace.
1. The quality to look for in a host is peace. There is no peace for the wicked. A man who has peace is at peace with God. You both are on the same side.
2. The man of peace is not likely to be the wealthiest person. The food will be simple. It’s better to live humbly in peace than to live nice but the host is selfish. I’ve stayed in really nice places, but the host said, “You ask too much.” We were lucky to sleep on his floor, in one room.
B. The purpose for living simply is that the message has to be in your life as much as in your words.
1. You eat what you are given and don’t move from house to house. You’re not to be working on how to improve your situation. When you go from one place looking for a better, that says that you are in this for yourself.
2. There’s an urgency to your message, so there’s an urgency to your life. Comfort and luxury are not the priority. Turning to God is the priority.
6. Because they testify that the kingdom of God and judgment is real.
A. They are to heal and preach the message that the kingdom of God has come near you.
B. Jesus allows for the likelihood that they will not be received.
1. This is after the disciples have healed people. People are open to healing, but not open to repent.
2. In that case, they are to publicly wipe the dust off of their feet and clothing. We don’t want to be near anything of yours in the judgment.
3. Know this: that the kingdom of God has come near you. We told you and you didn’t believe. You are responsible for your life, not us.
C. It’s not the healing that saves people, it’s the message. The healing points to the message.
D. Jesus Himself testifies to judgment.
1. He healed people and performed miracles in Chorazin and Bethsaida. Capernaum was where He made His base in Galilee. When He wasn’t on the road He was there teaching and doing works of power.
2. But these towns didn’t repent and turn to Jesus. He says the same miracles would have made notorious sinners like Tyre and Sidon repent. But not those places that saw most of Jesus.
3. Do miracles and healing make people to believe in Jesus? Jesus didn’t think so. It’s the gospel message itself that’s the power of God to salvation.
E. Jesus testified, and his disciples testify, that if you hear and believe the word you will be saved, and if you reject Jesus, you reject God. If you reject God there is nothing for you other than judgment.
7. So what?
A. Is Jesus calling His disciples into a grim harvest? Judgment is part of the message because judgment is real. It’s coming, that’s why you turn to Jesus and trust the good news that Jesus died to pay for your sins. The one who trusts in Him receives forgiveness of sins and eternal life. You won’t enter into judgment.
B. Working with Jesus in His harvest is wonderful. I want to point your attention to the next verse, that the disciples returned with joy.
1. They saw God work through them. They experienced God’s provision on the way. They found they weren’t throwing away their lives, they were entering into life indeed. They were working with Jesus in the work of God.
2. They were more into being Jesus’ disciples after the trip than they were before the trip. It was encouraging to trust and obey and find that God is with them, helping them, enabling them.
3. The greatest thing you can do is serve the Lord, and to enter into the work of His harvest. But do you honestly feel that, right now this second?
C. When we think about being called by God to serve Him, we wish He would choose someone else. It’s easy to be overwhelmed, to be scared, I don’t know enough, I’m not holy enough. I don’t have enough faith. I’m disqualified.
D. Jesus shows us where to start. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out more labourers into His harvest.
1. The harvest is always great, it’s always going to need labourers. That’s just the way it is. But we don’t start by looking at the harvest and despairing.
2. We start at the absolute top. Pray this prayer in faith. You know in advance that God will answer this prayer because it’s His prayer. If you do nothing else, pray to God everyday: Lord, send out labourers into Your harvest.
E. What will God do? He will send out more labourers. That’s when life gets exciting.
1. He might send you. That’s the next step. See, He sends people who care about the harvest. Begin to care in this way. He can work on your heart so you really say, Lord, here I am, send me.
2. It could be that you are that person of peace who helps one who is sent. That’s equally valid. When you help one who is sent you share in the work.
3. Harvest is the purpose of the ages. Everyone is to be involved with harvest because this is God’s work, it’s the highest priority, it’s why Jesus came to planet Earth.
F. Here’s where Jesus wants you to start. Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out more labourers into His harvest. Can you do that for Him?
Let’s pray.