The Good News Brings Joy
Last week Alex told us the story about Jesus sending out the 70 to “Proclaim peace, heal the sick and announce that the Kingdom of God was at hand.”
Alex explained to us how Jesus sent out a bunch of people ahead of him. It was not going to be easy; they would meet rejection as well as acceptance and would probably get some abuse too. The people he sent were not an elite gospel battle unit but just ordinary people who had started following Jesus. There was urgency in his voice; they weren’t to hang around but get on with it.
Luke 10:17-21
In this part of the stor
y we see the team returning full of excitement, “Hey, Jesus, it works! I did what you said and the demons went and people got healed. Amazing! Awesome!”
At this point I think Jesus does a little jig – a bit like a football manager when their team have just scored – pumping the air, high fives etc. Why? Because he knows that the enemy’s kingdom has been rolled back.
The enemy, the satan, is hard at work in our world making people’s lives a misery, bringing about death and destruction. When the sick get healed, demons are sent packing, forgiveness received, new life experienced this is evidence of God’s kingdom taking ground. Goals are being scored. People are full of joy.
We must take care – sometimes we confuse commitment with achievement – as though we prove our commitment by how many scalps we can hang from our belt, by how many goals we score. We are not called to achievement but to being heralds, to being people who will respond to the Spirit’s urging and just step across the room. Everything that results, or doesn’t, is the work of the Spirit – lest we take any credit. We rejoice not in our success but in being citizens who can be used by the King. This is great because it means we are all qualified, young and old. Jesus didn’t pick the specially clever or experienced. In fact here he describes the team as being like children.
He calls everyone into this mission and the result is joy.
And though he is chuffed to bits with the disciples’ stories and excitement, he is quick to remind them that they are to remember where the power comes from and to actually ensure that they remember they were nothing before Jesus saved them.
Jesus replies to their celebration by reflecting on a vision he has had of the satan falling. In other words he could see what was happening in the spiritual realms whilst his disciples were doing the business on the ground. When we are good news here, Satan is undone there.
May I digress briefly? Sometimes people urge me to get involved in a prayer battle with the powers of the heavens. I know what they mean and to which bible verses they are referring (Ephesians 6:12). But I don’t think that is what we are called to do. The clue is here. Jesus calls us into a battle on the ground. If we open our eyes we can see what the satan is doing right in front of us (not up there). As we feed the hungry, heal the sick, introduce Jesus to people and help them receive forgiveness and eternal life, the enemy’s power is broken. When we are good news here, Satan is undone there.
A couple of bible passages that explain what the battle on the ground looks like:
Luke 4:18-19
Jesus returns from 40 days fasting and being tempted in the desert.
He reads out his manifesto and says, “This is it guys. This is what the kingdom looks like” It is a package of behaviours and actions that describe what is going on when the kingdom of God gains territory.
Luke 7:20-22
John’s disciples asked Jesus whether or not he was the Messiah. In other words, “Are you the one to bring in the kingdom of God?” Jesus’ reply was to point to what was going on, on the ground around him. People being healed, the poor hearing the good news.
So in our story, in Luke 10, a little later on, the disciples have been sent to do the same stuff. They must have been scared witless as they set off. But in due course they come back and you can tell – they have just scored and are jumping around celebrating. Yes, the kingdom is coming and we get to play. We get to fight in this battle too! The kingdom of darkness is retreating and the kingdom of God is advancing, woohoo!
And Jesus does his jig. He loves the fact that the disciples have seen the kingdom and he bursts into worship, thanking God for the his upside-down plan which involves using the weak and child-like not the wise and learned.
2000 years later the enemy is still at work ruining people’s lives and wrecking God’s creation and we are still sent to confront this in the power of the Holy Spirit and to advance the kingdom of God. You and I are foot soldiers in the very same battle – we are tired, uncertain, lacking confidence, some of us are in trouble of our own or are ill and in pain. Whatever our situation though, we are qualified to join in, everyone gets to play – and working through our own stuff is part of the struggle.
This is what it looks like when we see the kingdom of God come.
• Everytime you are a neighbour to someone.
• Everytime you “walk across the room”.
• Everytime you take a food bag to someone who is hungry.
• Everytime you pray for someone who is sick.
• Everytime you send a demon packing.
• Everytime you explain to someone that they can receive forgiveness and eternal life.
• Everytime you do a piece of work that brings truth and light.
• Everytime you pray under your breath for the person working beside you.
• Everytime you bless the person you are serving with a smile and grace.
• Everytime you make a sacrifice to help the family.
Everytime you do this the enemy’s power is broken some more, the kingdom of God comes close, you can rejoice and Jesus celebrates.
In Leeds we are travelling beside hundreds, thousands, of people who are veering toward the edge of the precipice of life – we are sent to call them back, to hold their hand, to show them a better way, to introduce them to the lover of their souls – the one who died to save them and bring them into abundant life.
When you wake up in the morning, you who have given your life to Jesus, you still face the same challenges and joys of life as anyone else, but you also know Jesus and have power and purpose for new life. You live in a forgiven state and in the beginning of a new life that lasts forever.
Others face the day alone, filling that hole with work, busyness, activity, shopping, money, drink, food, drugs, sex … you can fill in the gaps.
But you can set off into the day, dealing with the normal things of life but also on a mission. What damage can I do for the kingdom today? Who can I bless, feed, pray for, encourage, share with? The Holy Spirit of Jesus fills us and empowers us to be heralds of the kingdom, each and every day. We walk across the room and ask the Spirit to come and do his stuff in the lives of those around us.
Luke 10 is one step in a series describing Jesus’ mission of inaugurating the kingdom of God.
• Luke 4: 40 days in the desert, fasting & praying
• Luke 4: issues his manifesto
• Luke 7: points to the activity of the kingdom
• Luke 9: sends out the twelve
• Luke 10: sends out the seventy
• Luke 24 & Acts 1: the promise of the Holy Spirit
• 1 Thessalonians 1: the early church
The history of the church in the subsequent 2000 years has been the history of people who follow Jesus getting stuck into this kingdom mission.
Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica discloses how this is turning out about 20 years after Jesus gave the instruction.
1 Thessalonians 1:4-10
Paul describes how he did his bit, bringing the gospel to the Thessalonians:
He came in the power of the Holy Spirit as well as with words and with conviction.
Then he describes how the Thessalonians responded: with joy, despite their suffering, becoming a model community of people who follow Jesus. Through the testimony of their lives and their own heralding of the kingdom the message “rang out”. Not a harsh ambulance siren or an ugly factory or school bell but a beautiful announcement of hope and grace.
And now it is our turn.
1. To receive the message with joy, whatever our own troubles and suffering, the grace we have received of forgiveness and new life is surpassingly great and our hearts erupt in worship and thanks and joy.
2. To be examples, by the way we live as a community of faith. By what we do with our money, time, energy and talents.
3. For the message of Jesus and his revolutionary, upside-down kingdom of grace and peace to ring out from us in Leeds and beyond.
So I challenge you, I call on you, to lift your heads from the hum drum distractions of life, to put aside any differences, to take courage, to offer your selves as willing heralds of the kingdom. I call you to live lives that draw people away from the satan’s precipice and toward Jesus’ perfect peace.
Do you want to join the 70 and the Thessalonians and millions down the centuries and report back with joy on how the good news brings peace as you have healed the sick and announced the kingdom?
If you want to join in this commission from Jesus why don’t you stand and we will pray?
David Flowers, 26/02/2010