Luke 10:2
“The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; . . .”
Sadly, the world has no shortage of those who are in need of Christ. Our population has reached the seven billion mark. Seven billion souls walking this planet, many of whom do not yet know Christ. We recognize certain places in the world as being unreached. Places where many, or even most, of the citizens are yet to hear the good news of salvation, through faith in Christ. We need to pray, send, and provide for those who go to the uttermost parts of the earth with the Good News of Christ. However, we cannot neglect to remember the many unreached souls in our own backyard. Here, in Luke 10, as Jesus sends the seventy, we have some practical instruction on how to reach the lost.
Two by two he sent them. Fellowship and accountability are crucial to effectively serving Jesus. When we get discouraged another can lift us up, when we get stuck, another can aid us with a timely word. Team up with a friend, or friends, and commit to serving the Lord together.
Pray! No ministry can be effective without constant, continual, and corporate prayer with your team. PRAY! Pray for opportunities, and for specific people who matter to each of you. Don’t stop praying, God will answer.
Go! Sometimes the very thing keeping us from seeing God work in our lives is just getting involved. Service is not something we should only know about and talk about, but it is something we must be doing. Who can you share Christ with today?
Carry nothing. While it is not wrong to have, it is wrong to put confidence in what we have. It is usually what we lack that keeps us from telling others about Christ. “I don’t know what to say”, or “What if they ask a question and I don’t know the answer?” When we let those things stop us, we are not trusting Jesus.
Say peace to this house. Be a blessing to those who don’t know Christ, yet. They are not the enemy, but the object of Jesus’ love. Think about the behaviors of those Jesus to whom reached out. They were sinners in every way, but Jesus loved them and reached out to them. Do the same.
Tell them the Kingdom has come near. Let people know that salvation is a call away. Paul said it is not far from us, but so close that all a person needs to do is believe and receive. That message is easy to remember and you have been equipped by Jesus to share it.
Let’s team up, and go out with the glorious message of salvation through faith in Christ.
Pastor Jim
Questions for Luke 10
- The Lord is looking for laborers or people to go out into whose harvest?
- What does Jesus say is the problem with the harvest?
- Are you a laborer for the Lords harvest?
- According to verse 3, is it safe to be a laborer?
- As we are sent out according to the command of verse 4, we have no choice but to __________________in the Lord.
- As a laborer, if people reject the message of Jesus that you share, who are they actually rejecting?
- The seventy servants return to Jesus and illustrate for us the byproduct of being a laborer for Jesus. How did they return to Jesus?
- According to verse 20, what are we to rejoice in?
- Take a moment and consider the story of the Good Samaritan. Now take a moment and pray that the Lord would give you a heart like Him.
- Now consider the story of Mary and Martha. Jesus just finished communicating in this chapter the importance of serving Him and being a laborer in His harvest. What is the more important part as illustrated by Mary?
When the Lord calls us to serve Him, there seems to be a universal response. Our hearts cry out, “I can’t.” This was the same response of Moses, Saul and Gideon. We feel this way because the Lord always seems to call us to do what is beyond our capacities. A young woman with small children senses a call to teach in children’s church, or a retired couple hears the call to the mission field, or a young man has a burning in his heart to become a pastor, and the voice in our head cries out “I can’t.” I think there is something encouraging here as Jesus calls the twelve. He is sending them out to serve Him. They will encounter many with needs beyond their capabilities to handle. They will cross paths with the sick, who will look to them for the answer, the demoniacs, who are held under by the powers of the devil, and some will will oppose the work of God. For their journey they are told to take nothing; no money, no provisions, no extra stuff. These things will not equip them for the ministry. Jesus wants them to understand that those are not the things that enable them, nor will a lack of those things restrict them. Instead, Jesus provides everything that is necessary. We read, “He gave them power and authority” All of their objections, and ours, should be silenced by these six words. Whatever reasons they had for objecting to the call, whatever lack they may have felt, must be silenced when Jesus declares, “I have given you power and authority.” Just as their objections are silenced by His promise, so must ours be silenced. Whatever objections you have to the call of God on your life, understand what He calls us to, He equips us for. As He said to Gideon, He says to you “Mighty man of valor… Go in this might of yours”(Judges 6:14). Will you go?
I love a good mystery; as a child I had a book titled “2 Minute Mysteries.” It was a book of short stories, in which a crime would be described and the reader was left to guess who the guilty party was. The trick was, the answer was hidden. There was always something tucked away that was hard to find, almost like a secret, that revealed the answer. I would try so hard to guess correctly, but most often, when I flipped to the back of the book for the answer I found my guess was wrong. When Jesus speaks of the “Mysteries of the Kingdom,” He is not speaking of a secret truth that only a few can understand by reading their Bibles with a special code. Jesus is telling His disciples that everything we need to know about the Kingdom of God can be found by those who are part of it.
The event which occurs in the house of Simon the Pharisee stands out to me as one of the most fascinating in the New Testament. No miraculous healing takes place: the deaf do not hear, the blind do not see, nor are the dead raised. Yet this story is both priceless and timeless in the truth it reveals. It is the story of two people and their view of Jesus. Simon was a religious man that showed interest in Jesus. He valued Jesus more than many of his contemporaries.
Giving is an important part of being a Christian. Our checkbook often reflects our heart. The things that matter most to us are the things on which we spend our hard earned money. When we are struggling about whether we can trust God with our finances, we are sometimes reminded of this verse. While it is true God is trustworthy and we will never be able to out give Him, I think we have missed a key message from this verse. Note with me the context; Jesus has been speaking of the Father’s mercy. He tells us God is kind to the unthankful and the evil, and we should be like our heavenly Father. Rather than being critical of every action, we should forgive one another.
The scribes and Pharisees are complaining about Jesus’ actions. They do not think He should meet with sinners. I hear this complaint every time we gather as a church for corporate worship. It is not the voice of the Pharisees that I hear, but my own voice. I begin to think of all the reasons why I cannot enter into the presence of God, enjoy access to the throne of Grace or experience His work in my life. I am reminded of my sins, both the things that I have done and what I have failed to do. Along with those thoughts, comes an overwhelming sense of not being worthy to enter His presence. It is at that moment when this great truth rings out from His Word:
Since man’s greatest problem is sin, man’s greatest need is for a savior. We don’t have to look too far to see that we are a fallen race. War, prejudice, and crime are all around us. Even within our own homes we have anger, lust, fear and unforgiveness. We are a people desperately in need of God. The great news of the Bible is that God came to save. The Bible speaks of the all-sufficient work of Christ upon the cross. So effective was His sacrifice, that any and all who believe on Him will be saved from the penalty of sin. That my friends is the good news of the Gospel.
John the Baptist had a thriving ministry. We read that multitudes, or large gatherings of people, came out to hear him preach. We read that this crowd was made up of a cross section of society. There were religious people, tax collectors, and soldiers, as well as what we might call the everyday man; all of whom had come out to hear John speak.
Sometimes, we wonder if our lives could ever really make a difference. We see others who are being used by God, and we think, “of course God uses them, they are so…” But when it comes to us, we think, “God can’t use me because…”
Every parent has the same goal. We desire the best for our children. We want to see them achieve more than we have. We want them to make it through childhood not having been distracted or derailed by vices, but to be prepared to live godly lives and make good life choices. What a blessing for Zacharias and Elizabeth to read that their son, “grew and became strong in spirit”.
Jim Gallagher 