All Glory to God the Father and to our Savior Jesus Christ
From Westminster Shorter Catechism, questions 43 to 46:
Q43. What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?
A43. The preface to the Ten Commandments is in these words, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house OF SLAVERY.”
Q44. What doth the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us?
A44. The preface to the Ten Commandments teacheth us, That because God is The Lord, and our God, and Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all His commandments.
Q45: Which is the First Commandment?
A45: The First Commandment is, “thou shalt have no other gods before Me.”
Q46: What is required in the First Commandment?
A46: The First Commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God to be only true God, and our God; and to worship and glorify Him accordingly.
Today we will diverge from our study of John 1 and spend a bit of time in Luke 10. Our Lord Christ is being tested by a lawyer, who had sat there with Christ and listened to the report of the 70 that had been sent out.
Luke 10:1
Now after this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come.
And if you apply any of the curiosity that the Good Lord has blessed you with you would naturally wonder what “after this” means. Luke has been a favorite of mine and chapter 9 of his epistle is jammed packed with the works of our Lord. A few of the highlights were His sending the 12 out and them coming back amazed that even the demons obey them through Christ’s name. Meaning that they knew it was not their power but Christ’s.
And then there was the feeding of 5000 and the Transfiguration and on and on. I will let you read chapter 9 in detail on your own.
So the Lord had sent these 70 out to proclaim the good news and do what the 12 did.
Luke 10:2-12
And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go; behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes; and greet no one on the way. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ 6 If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house. 8 Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you; 9 and heal those in it who are sick, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet we wipe off in protest against you; yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ 12 I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city.
We’ve all heard this story, head knowledge, but we need to apply it to our heart. The harvest is plenty but the laborers are few. Do you consider yourself to be a laborer for the Lord? That’s a valid question for you to ask yourself. And if you don’t consider yourself to be laborer for the Lord, why not? I mean what are you doing with your time? You might think “Oh, I’m too old or I’m disabled or I don’t know what to say,” the list of excuses are endless really. If you are not serving the Lord, if you are content to let Pastors do all the heavy lifting while you sit comfortably in your pew, then you are serving the prince of this world, satan. That’s how Jesus views things. You either obey God, serve him with your obedience and doing His will and by that be blessed, or you serve man, by being passive, sitting there in your pew and letting others do the work of the spirit. Not changing how you go about your day to day life, even when you know what God wants from you. And by serving man, by not participating, you are serving satan. The bible was written by God so that we might know Him and His will, how to live.
These 70 were commissioned by Christ to do his will and they did. They went out as lambs, in the midst of wolves, going to houses of men who were obeying God and let these boys stay and fed them. And Peace was blessed upon that house. There were instructions also on how to deal with those not obeying God. As Christians, we are told to not consort with unsavory types:
1 Corinthians 15:33
Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”
Proverbs 13:20
Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
1 Corinthians 5:11
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
He told them to shake the dust off their feet when encountering such a place or people, in disobedience to God. It comes down to this passage:
Luke 10:16 “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”
The 70 came back with good news:
Luke 10:17-20
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” 18 And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. 20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
When God sends you out, He sends you out with the tools to get the job done. This is why your excuse that you can’t, for whatever reason, is not true. Jesus sent a helper to the apostles and that helper is indwelling you, if you are truly a believer. The Holy Spirit will give you the courage and the words to say.(Deuteronomy 31:6 Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.) I am not saying you will have the courage of a lion, just enough courage to do the job. Doubting this, is troubling.
At hearing the report from the 70, Christ praised the Father:
Luke 10:21-22
21 At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. 22 All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
I hope you noticed that Christ rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit. That very same Holy Spirit that you doubt when you say you can’t.
Luke 10:23
Turning to the disciples, He said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, 24 for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.”
Now we are at the point where a lawyer steps up and wants to test Christ. Who do you think he was serving?
Luke 10:25-29
And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” 29 But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Who really is my neighbor? It is interesting to me and should be to you as to how God works things out for us. This is called Providence. I see Providence happening all the time. I had it happen last Sunday, or really last Tuesday when I created the graphic to the bulletin for the church. You see, I am the secretary in charge of making the bulletin and I research the bible and come up with some image that will fit with it. I chose John 15:16-17
16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another.
I stuck that on the front page of the bulletin and thought no more about it. Sunday comes around and as we go to church, about a block from the church, we passed what I initially thought was a mannequin and pointed out to my wife, but as we drove, I reviewed it in my mind and found it probably was real because I also saw a sign that read “Anything will help.” It was 26 degrees at the time and my mind was burdened by this. I get in the building and my normal routine is to set up my iPad to start a Zoom session and get the video camera rolling. However, I made a beeline to my Brother in Law, Leighton, and asked him if he had seen the homeless guy on the road. Now I know Leighton well, he and God are why I am doing all this. This is called discipleship. And I know that Leighton would be concerned if I said there was a homeless guy a block from the church. Except he wasn’t. “Nope” he said “didn’t see him” and that was that. I am now really bothered, because of the homeless guy and Leighton’s response. I get everything set up and sit down by my wife. We discuss the homeless guy and then look up and around and notice that Pastor Aaron is not around. He should be very evident at this time. I asked my wife if she had seen him. No, she had not. I asked her what the bible verse for the sermon today is. Luke 10:25-37. I opened my bible and started to read and stopped.
God has blessed me with an active and curious mind. One that can see patterns and sometimes put 2 and 2 together. I looked up and told my wife the homeless guy is Aaron. Then I got up and found Leighton and asked him if Aaron was the homeless guy. My Brother in Law got a brief moment of surprised panic in his eyes and nodded yes. My stomach dropped and what came out of my mouth was “I am convicted!” This was worse than a random homeless guy. I had just about been ready to get back in the car and convince the homeless guy to come back to the warm church. Just about, but not quite. Good intentions don’t count when doing the Lord’s work. I found out something else about myself. ALS will give you the shakes now and then, but it breaks the knob off at the 11 mark when under stress. I confess to being a tad stressed while wobbling back to my seat. I picked up the bulletin and looked at the bible verse on the front page, the one I put there. “This I command you, that you love one another.” This is where Providence left its mark. I was convicted, I did not do what my Lord had commanded me. And it hurt, bad. I spent the rest of the service shaking and repenting. It made for a good combination of contrition.
Pastor Aaron had been calling for testimonies from the congregation for the last month. So of course the homeless man had made it to the church and of course the homeless man slowly walked up and gave his testimony. And it was a killer one too. And then said homeless man took off his long wig and became our strong Shepard again and told of the Good Samaritan story.
Luke 10:30-37
30 Jesus replied and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. 31 And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, 34 and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ 36 Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” 37 And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”
Go and do the same, and I did not. My wife reminded me that we are forgiven, and I said yes, I know, but that does not make it any easier that I have failed my Lord, for I knew what I should have done.
While we are forgiven, we are still sinners and as such, our Father expects us to repent our sins and learn from them.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Matthew 6:14
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,
Disappointing our Lord should be painful and was. Accept the conviction, repent and forsake the sin, and learn the lesson so that you may not sin like that again. We have a merciful and forgiving Lord. That is the best part of this lesson.
My Mother in Law who was also at church, asked me on her way out the door “Was it you that gave him (homeless guy) your coat?”. No I said, but it should have been.