SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the Village Chapel.
SPEAKER_00: And today is no different.
SPEAKER_00: If you would like a paper copy to follow along with, just you know the drill, raise your hand, and someone will faithfully and cheerfully deliver you said paper copy.
SPEAKER_00: And as always, our Wi-Fi login info, password, QR code, all that's up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: And welcome to our friends watching online.
SPEAKER_00: Here's an all-American lineup of who joined us last week where people were turning, tuned in from Birmingham, Alabama.
SPEAKER_00: Yay.
SPEAKER_00: Briarwood.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning, Dan Doriani.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's Dan tuning in.
SPEAKER_00: He's the interim head pastor at Briarwood Down in Birmingham, and he's tuning in to us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding, I have no idea who it was.
SPEAKER_00: Louisville, Birmingham, Louisville, Kentucky, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Tampa, Florida.
SPEAKER_00: Shout out again to Bern Steakhouse.
SPEAKER_00: If you know, you know.
SPEAKER_00: So welcome, friends.
SPEAKER_00: We're glad you're joining us.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, none of you live very far away, so the next time you're in town, come see us.
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful thing when people that watch online from out of town are coming through visiting Nashville and they come say hi to us.
SPEAKER_00: We absolutely love that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this morning, we're continuing our study of the gospel according to Luke, the good doctor who's the author of the gospel and of the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: And I love how Luke started out his gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read the first couple of sentences again from the first chapter.
SPEAKER_00: He starts out saying, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as though as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, Luke is a doctor, he would have understood the value of being observant, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he would have known about the importance and the value of taking really good, careful notes, accurate notes.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's doing that in this instance because he's been closely following the events, interviewing the eyewitnesses, the disciples, without a doubt, he interviewed Mary.
SPEAKER_00: And he did all of this, took all of these careful notes to compile what he called an orderly account so he could give that to his friend Theophilus in order that Theophilus might have certainty about all that he had been taught about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we're so lucky and fortunate and blessed we get the benefit of that carefully detailed account.
SPEAKER_00: Well, for the last few weeks, we've been we've been following Luke's account closely, haven't we, in all of this time.
SPEAKER_00: The last few weeks we've been following along as the disciples in Jesus have traveled around Galilee, and we're close to the end of Jesus' Galilean ministry.
SPEAKER_00: In the next chapter or two, we're going to see Jesus turn and set his face towards Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of coming up on the close of the Galilean ministry, and we've watched along with the disciple, has disciples as Jesus has cared for people body and soul.
SPEAKER_00: He has preached the good news of the kingdom of God to them and cared for their souls, for their spiritual life, but he's also healed them from all sorts of diseases, cast out demons.
SPEAKER_00: He has cared for them body and soul.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples have witnessed all of this firsthand, but today, Jesus, we are going to see a miracle at the end of the passage, but he's going to do something entirely new and different.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to call the 12 disciples to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to send them out on a short-term mission to do the very same things that we've been witnessed to him doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm calling our message today, living a sent life.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Jim has said on many an Easter morning sermon that the Christian faith is a come and see, go and tell kind of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Come and see the empty tomb where the body lay and is no longer, and run and go and tell everyone about it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the same thing that's been going on in the Galilean ministry.
SPEAKER_00: People have been flocking to see this Jesus that they have been hearing about, to be healed of their own diseases, to hear him preached.
SPEAKER_00: They've come and see, they've gone and tell, and now the crowds are growing and growing and growing.
SPEAKER_00: The miracles that we've seen Jesus do the last couple of weeks, they connect in with the miracle today, the feeding of the 5,000, and they point towards the passage that Pastor Tommy's going to teach us next week.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's look at again at what the miracles of Jesus do.
SPEAKER_00: They constantly point to Jesus, but what do they tell us about him?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they display the power and authority of Jesus over nature, over demons, over disease, over death itself.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, they arouse curiosity about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who is this man that can control the wind and the waves?
SPEAKER_00: People come by the hundreds and then by the thousands to see this man who casts out demons, who heals diseases, who raises people from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: They've heard he can do all sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're curious.
SPEAKER_00: Then the miracles they reveal the compassion of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, he cares for the whole person, body and soul.
SPEAKER_00: He's filled with compassion for us.
SPEAKER_00: His love for us is what drives him.
SPEAKER_00: And he cares for not only the multitudes, but he also has compassion on the individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking over the last couple of weeks, thinking about Jairus, whose daughter is dying.
SPEAKER_00: And the woman who was hemorrhaging for as long as Jairus' daughter has been alive.
SPEAKER_00: And then a couple of weeks before that, the widow of Nain, whose only son had died and Jesus resurrected him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has compassion on us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what the miracles show us.
SPEAKER_00: And then they also affirm the identity of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who can forgive sins?
SPEAKER_00: Who has the ability to control nature, the elements?
SPEAKER_00: Only God alone can do these things.
SPEAKER_00: And then lastly, they inspire discipleship and worship of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: People are leaving their homes, their businesses.
SPEAKER_00: They will leave everything to follow Jesus and experience the life that they are finding in Him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, in the middle of all of this, Jesus chooses to call his 12 disciples to him.
SPEAKER_00: He empowers and equips them, and then he sends them out on mission.
SPEAKER_00: And while I was studying the passage this week, it hit me, gosh, this is a preview.
SPEAKER_00: In this little bit, this few verses, this is a preview of the Great Commission at the end of the Gospel of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: A preview of the commission that Jesus gives to the disciples in the first chapter of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: It's a dress rehearsal for what the disciples are going to do after the day of Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a preview, I think, of the life, this living ascent life.
SPEAKER_00: I think it is a preview of the life that we're called to live in 2025.
SPEAKER_00: We are broken, we're imperfect, many times weak, many times sinful, human instruments in the hands of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to bring the good news of the gospel to world desperately in need of some good news.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Teresa of Avila wrote this in the 1500s, and boy, is it powerful.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just soak, soak this in and refer back to it this week in your devotion times.
SPEAKER_00: Christ has no body now but yours.
SPEAKER_00: No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
SPEAKER_00: Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world.
SPEAKER_00: Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
SPEAKER_00: Yo are the hands with which he blesses the world.
SPEAKER_00: What a humbling, electrifying thing that is, that Jesus is choosing us to be his hands and feet.
SPEAKER_00: I think we're at an amazing point in history.
SPEAKER_00: I strongly believe that we're starting to see cracks in the wall and the foundation of new atheism of the postmodernist culture.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we all have such a God-given, God-breathed, deeply ingrained desire for meaning.
SPEAKER_00: We are hardwired for significance to know that our lives matter.
SPEAKER_00: And I think people are beginning to see the vacuity of expressive individualism, the vacuity and the end of subjective truth.
SPEAKER_00: I think that people are becoming more and more open not only to the idea of the existence of God and of objective reality, objective truth, but I think they're becoming more and more open to finding meaning and purpose in their lives because of God, through a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're hearing more and more about influencers of all sorts, if you will, of people becoming believers, and not that their theology is perfect.
SPEAKER_00: Mine certainly isn't.
SPEAKER_00: But we've learned in the last few weeks that Jesus doesn't demand our theology be perfect before he welcomes us and invites us to follow him.
SPEAKER_00: He invites us to follow him right where we are.
SPEAKER_00: Having said all this, man, I believe that we have an opportunity at this moment to live sent lives that have a radical impact on the watching world around us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to talk about today.
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's pray, church, and then let's read our text.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, open our eyes, our ears, our hearts, and our minds to your word, to your will, to your call.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask this in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So we're in chapter 9 of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: The first couple of verses.
SPEAKER_00: And he, Jesus, he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember this.
SPEAKER_00: Back in chapter 6, Jesus goes up all night to pray on a mountain, and the next day he calls all of his disciples to him, but he chooses the twelve and names them apostles.
SPEAKER_00: So the difference, there's a distinction here.
SPEAKER_00: A disciple is a student, a follower, but an apostle is also one who is sent out.
SPEAKER_00: So while apostles would be disciples, not every disciple is going to be an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important here that Jesus gave the disciples or the apostles both power and authority, because one without the other is incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: Power here means the ability to do.
SPEAKER_00: Power, energy, capacity, and then authority means having the right to use the power.
SPEAKER_00: And I ran across this description unknown this week, but I thought it was good.
SPEAKER_00: A leader with power and no authority rules through fear.
SPEAKER_00: A leader with authority and no power is easily ignored.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, power without authority leads to tyranny, and we've certainly been witness to lots of tyrants down through history.
SPEAKER_00: And one who has authority but no real power, they're easily ignored.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone here a fan of the old Andy Griffith TV show?
SPEAKER_00: You know where I'm going with this probably.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Andy, who is a good and kind, he's a great sheriff.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he has this bumbling, stumbling, fumbling deputy, Barney Fife.
SPEAKER_00: And Barney Fife is the picture of someone with authority and no power.
SPEAKER_00: Barney carries a gun, of course, because he's a sheriff's deputy, but the gun's unloaded.
SPEAKER_00: And he's allowed one bullet that he has to keep buttoned up in his shirt pocket.
SPEAKER_00: And it's over and over again, it's the funniest thing to see Barney trying to chase after a bad guy, trying to get, you know, he has no authority.
SPEAKER_00: Or he has authority, but no power.
SPEAKER_00: He's easily ignored.
SPEAKER_00: But here, Jesus gives the disciples both power, the capacity to act in the way he's called them, and he gives them the authority to do this in his name, the right to use that power.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he do next?
SPEAKER_00: He's called them, he's equipped them, and then he sends them out.
SPEAKER_00: Out to do what?
SPEAKER_00: To do the very thing that he himself has been doing, to preach the good news of the kingdom, to cast out demons, to heal diseases.
SPEAKER_00: And that is exactly what the disciples do.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's move on.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them, Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, and do not have two tunics.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever house you enter, stay there and from there depart.
SPEAKER_00: And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.
SPEAKER_00: And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: They did exactly as he instructed them to do.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he gives explicit instructions here on how to prepare for this one journey that he's sending them on.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, don't prepare.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you all, I'm a pretty spontaneous guy, but when it comes to our family going on trips, I turn into this temporary prepper.
SPEAKER_00: Like I am I am planning and packing and preparing for any contingency that's going to happen while we're out on our journey.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else like that at all?
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty lonely in here.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You have no idea how how good that makes me feel.
SPEAKER_00: Well, but here, Jesus is specifically telling the disciples, take nothing for your journey.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he'll have different instructions on other journeys, but on this one, no staff, no bag with stuff, no bread, no food, no money, no second tunic, you know, if your first one gets torn up by a lion.
SPEAKER_00: We get the distinct impression that Jesus wants them to be very aware of the fact that he is the one who has called them and equipped them and sent them out.
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to be the one who provides for them on this journey.
SPEAKER_00: And he actually refers to this later on, I think in chapter 22, and he asks them, Did you like for anything?
SPEAKER_00: They say, Well, no, we didn't.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives them that extra instruction about if you're not received, shake it off when they leave the town.
SPEAKER_00: To quote the great theologian Taylor Swift, player's gonna play, haters gonna hate, I'm gonna shake it off, shake it off, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if she was thinking about Luke 9 when she wrote this song.
SPEAKER_00: You never know, but I I doubt it.
SPEAKER_00: We have a phrase for this around our house like water off a duck's back.
SPEAKER_00: And I love, I love the honesty that Jesus uses to prepare his disciple.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, you know, not everybody's gonna receive the message of the good news of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if they don't receive it, shake the dust off when you leave town and just let it roll off your back.
SPEAKER_00: So let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: Now Herod the Tetrarch heard about all that was happening, and he was perplexed.
SPEAKER_00: What a great word, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen.
SPEAKER_00: Herod said, Hmm, John I beheaded, but who is this about whom I hear such things?
SPEAKER_00: And he sought to see him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, so many people in Galilee, and today, actually, so many people are fascinated with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is a fascinating person.
SPEAKER_00: Rumors are flying high that Jesus might be Elijah appearing, just like Malachi had prophesied that Elijah would appear before the coming of Messiah, or one of the prophets of old had risen from the dead, or even that John the Baptist, who was recently murdered by Herod, maybe he had risen from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And while we read, we read that Herod was perplexed because he knew that he had just had John the Baptist killed.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he might have been a little nervous.
SPEAKER_00: Could it be John?
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: And I think he's a little bit of a guilty conscience.
SPEAKER_00: If if we have any Edgar Allan Poe fans in here, the the short story of the Tell Tell Heart, which I won't go into detail, but it's just like that.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if Herod maybe had a little bit of a guilty conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he really wants to see Jesus, and he will get his chance.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 23, we'll read where Pontius Pilate sends Jesus to Herod.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this little section right here, those two or three verses, it's pointing us ahead to next week's message that Pastor Tommy's going to teach, where Jesus asks the disciples, Who do the crowds say that I am?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, picking back up in verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: Well, on their return, the apostles told him all that they had done.
SPEAKER_00: And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Beth Seda.
SPEAKER_00: And when the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing.
SPEAKER_00: Now the day began to wear away.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautifully poetic way of saying it was late afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: Now the day began to wear away.
SPEAKER_00: And the twelve came to him and said to him, Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.
SPEAKER_00: But he said to them, You give them something to eat.
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, we have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we're to go and buy food for all these people, for there were about five thousand men.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to his disciples, Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.
SPEAKER_00: And they did so and had them all sit down.
SPEAKER_00: Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them.
SPEAKER_00: Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd, and they all ate and were satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this miracle, this is the only pre-resurrection miracle that's found in all four of the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: It's that important.
SPEAKER_00: It's the apex of Jesus' Galilean ministry.
SPEAKER_00: This little story tells us so much about Jesus' heart to serve, and it points to him just being Lord of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: First, in verse 10, we read of the triumphant, excited return of the disciples who told Jesus all about what they did.
SPEAKER_00: What we read in verse 5, they went through all the villages preaching the gospel, healing everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And can you imagine how excited they were, each talking over the other about the dead who were raised right out of the ground, limbs that grew back, lepers who were cured, families reunited, whole towns delivered from demonic oppression.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus hears all this and knowing how weary they are, he wants to take them on a staff retreat.
SPEAKER_00: So they get in a boat and they head to Beth Seda up on the north side of the lake, the northeast coast, hoping for some good rest and restoration for the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: But then we read in verse 11 that crowds have followed them to their retreat.
SPEAKER_00: And in Mark's telling of this story, in Mark's gospel, there are some young men that, as they're leaving in the boat, they actually run around the north side of the lake and they beat them to the destination.
SPEAKER_00: They're waiting for them when they get there.
SPEAKER_00: And I've got a couple of photos on a slide that Kristen took when we were in Israel in 2018, and these were up in the Galilee region.
SPEAKER_00: And looking at these two photos, you definitely get a sense of desolate, lonely places.
SPEAKER_00: Not a lot there, and that's why the disciples would be saying, send them away.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how did Jesus respond to their plans of their little retreat getting interrupted?
SPEAKER_00: We read that he welcomed the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't turn his phone to do not disturb.
SPEAKER_00: No, he met the crowd, he welcomed them and served them, and that's such a good lesson to the disciples and to us about serving when you're weary.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you spoke to the crowds all day long, and as the day is nearing its end, people were getting hungry and tired.
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples, the disciples, at the very least, they were observants, which we can appreciate, and they noticed everybody getting hungry and tired, so they're aware of the situation, which is good, but their immediate response is send them away.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, Jesus is not a send them away kind of guy, is he?
SPEAKER_00: And that is not his response.
SPEAKER_00: And I get what the disciples were thinking with this large crowd.
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking logistics, they're thinking efficiency.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is thinking about ministry and serving and caring for the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And his response to the disciples, you give them some, excuse me, you give them something to eat.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's two or three reasons why he might have said that.
SPEAKER_00: I think he really wants them to be aware in their ministry, in the future for their ministry.
SPEAKER_00: I think he wants them to be aware that there is a higher goal than just logistics and efficiency.
SPEAKER_00: The highest goal is to care for the person body and soul.
SPEAKER_00: And I think he wanted to challenge them a little bit, like, hey, I've given you all this power and authority which you've already been using to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: How are you going to use it in these circumstances?
SPEAKER_00: How are you going to apply that?
SPEAKER_00: Is sending them away the best answer you've got?
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: And then third, I think he also wanted to remind them that he is still the one providing the power, the authority.
SPEAKER_00: He's still the one equipping everything for them, and he was, as he's fixing to show them, he's sufficient for their needs and the needs of the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: 5,000 men, we read about that in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: That didn't mean that was the size of the whole crowd.
SPEAKER_00: That was just the men.
SPEAKER_00: If you add in women and children, it could have been anywhere from 10 to 20,000 people.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of hungry, tired folks.
SPEAKER_00: So let's go conservative and say 10,000.
SPEAKER_00: So when he asked the disciples to have the crowd sit in groups of about 50, this is just brilliant leadership on so many levels.
SPEAKER_00: So as these people were being seated, they would naturally have kind of quieted down.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they this crowd of 10,000 plus could have turned into a mob or could have rioted because they were hungry and tired.
SPEAKER_00: But this kind of kept the scene, it just kind of quieted things down.
SPEAKER_00: Gave the crowd an opportunity to maybe listen to Jesus as he broke the bread.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, King of the world, for creating this bread and growing it.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's another thing that I was just thinking about from our chili cook-off Friday night.
SPEAKER_00: We had a room full of people.
SPEAKER_00: It was glorious.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, as these people started sitting in groups of 50, and especially as they started receiving the food and started eating, I think fellowship happened that would not have happened if it was just a throng of 10,000 people.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we saw Friday night.
SPEAKER_00: It was just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Room full of people.
SPEAKER_00: Then we go through the line, everybody starts sitting at their tables, they start supping together, they start eating, they start having communion together.
SPEAKER_00: And that was accomplished by putting these people in these groups of 50.
SPEAKER_00: So, something else, a couple of things left here.
SPEAKER_00: What's important, we're told that everyone ate.
SPEAKER_00: We're told that everyone was satisfied, satiated, so full they, you know, that fullness where you might want to loosen your belt a notch.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of full.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, there were 12 baskets of leftovers.
SPEAKER_00: Not two, not 25, not 33, not 11, 12.
SPEAKER_00: How many disciples were there?
SPEAKER_00: 12.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to think that each disciple was a hands-on witness to this wonderworking, totally providing for, making much out of little miracle power of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they had to have seen that he was capable and sufficient of meeting their needs.
SPEAKER_00: Well, my goodness.
SPEAKER_00: What a great passage.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful text with such a powerful picture of the Lordship and the sufficiency of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And what a humbling thing to realize, just like the disciples, that the Savior of the world, the God of all creation, is inviting us in to do the same things that He's doing, the same work that He Himself is doing.
SPEAKER_00: So I use the phrase living a sent life as the title for the message, and I do believe that that's what we're called to.
SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean to be living a sent life?
SPEAKER_00: I think the first thing it means that we are being called by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us to relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples had already been in a relationship with Jesus when he sent them out on mission.
SPEAKER_00: And we know what a different, eclectic bunch of fellows they were.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't necessarily like bastions of Jewish society, strong business leaders.
SPEAKER_00: They were just 12 guys faithfully following Jesus, responding to the call, following imperfectly.
SPEAKER_00: And then look at how they responded when Jesus was arrested and crucified.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see that they scatter and scamper like little rabbits or bunnies or something they hid in fear of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And then post-resurrection, seeing Jesus, being commissioned by Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, man, they are utterly transformed.
SPEAKER_00: They radically follow Jesus and boldly preach the gospel to the entire known world.
SPEAKER_00: God calls us to Himself first.
SPEAKER_00: Mother Teresa puts it this way.
SPEAKER_00: She says, God has not called me to be successful.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, first off, that's what God is calling us.
SPEAKER_00: He's calling us to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's just calling us to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: To point to him with our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to say that as we point to Jesus, we ought to point to Jesus as the King and not just a life hack, right?
SPEAKER_00: As exciting as it is, that more and more people are becoming so much more open to the existence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the crowds were fascinated in our passage about who they thought Jesus might be.
SPEAKER_00: Many people regard Jesus as simply a life hack, as utilitarian, like follow Jesus and everything's going to be great.
SPEAKER_00: Here's your 10 steps to getting the best life now by following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that's accurate.
SPEAKER_00: Kent Hughes, who has a great commentary on the book of Luke that I would highly recommend, totally disagrees with the idea of a life hack Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he says we're missing the boat if that's the way we present him.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: And where he says preaching, I'm thinking witnessing living for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We are failing miserably in our task if our preaching gives people the impression that the kingdom of God is mainly concerned with promoting a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: How Christ can improve your marriage or finances or sex life or parenting.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom does affect such things, but our preaching fails if it does not bring people to see that the crucial question is who Jesus is and that he's coming in glory to judge the living and the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, yeah, we have an amazing opportunity right now to present the real Jesus to the watching world.
SPEAKER_00: So living a sent life, it means that we're called by Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it also means we're being equipped by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Just like he did with the disciples, he's going to equip us for the work that he's calling us to do.
SPEAKER_00: The weight is on Jesus, it's not on us.
SPEAKER_00: Paul Tripp has a new book out and he's got a great thought about this very thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's a devotional book called Everyday Gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, when God calls us, he empowers us, not just because he's loving and kind and knows we're weak, but because we are the instruments through which he will accomplish his plan that he set in place before the world was created.
SPEAKER_00: He has chosen to use us as the instruments to accomplish his plan.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2.10 says something about this very thing.
SPEAKER_00: It says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, God knows all about you and me, about each one of us, because he's the one who has fearfully and wonderfully made us, made you for good works that he has created for you to do, that you should walk in them.
SPEAKER_00: Lean back on him because he's doing all the heavy lifting.
SPEAKER_00: He is equipping and powering and empowering you to be sent out.
SPEAKER_00: All we do is walk in the path that he's laid out for us.
SPEAKER_00: And our very inadequacy is what drives us back to Jesus, who is sufficient for all our needs.
SPEAKER_00: I ran across this quote by Alexander McLaren this week, and he says, it's often our God-given duty to attempt tasks to which we are conspicuously inadequate in the confidence that he who gives them those tasks that we feel inadequate to do, he has laid them on us in order to drive us to himself.
SPEAKER_00: And there to find sufficiency.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful plan.
SPEAKER_00: The best preparation of his servants for their work in the world is the discovery that their own stores are small.
SPEAKER_00: That I just love the beautiful part of Jesus calling us to be in relationship is also to equip us, but to equip us by realizing that we have to continue to return to him to be our sufficiency.
SPEAKER_00: Part of the equipping is the continued call to relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: And last, living a sent life means being called, equipped, and then actually, excuse me, being sent by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I said earlier, Jesus isn't a send them away kind of guy, however, he is a send them out sort of God.
SPEAKER_00: A send us out.
SPEAKER_00: He calls us, he equips us, and then he sends us out because there is a world out there hungry for the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the way John Stott says this.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Tommy sent this quote to me this week.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of his favorites.
SPEAKER_00: Tommy, thank you for sharing.
SPEAKER_00: John says, authentic Christianity is not a safe, smug, cozy, selfish, escapist little religion.
SPEAKER_00: It is an explosive, centrifugal force which pulls us out from our narrow self-centeredness and flings us into God's world to witness and to serve.
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Think of one of those little hand mixers, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're preparing a cake, you've got your mixing bowl, you've got the cake batter in the bowl, put your mixer in, you turn it on medium.
SPEAKER_00: Then you pull the mixer out of the bowl without turning it off.
SPEAKER_00: And those beaters are just doing like this, flinging cake batter everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And that's just like the gospel in God's plan for redemption.
SPEAKER_00: We are being spread to every corner of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: We're like cake batter, but then we're also like anointing oil oozing down into every corner of creation, seeping down into the cracks and crevices of a world in need.
SPEAKER_00: He is in love, flinging us far and wide.
SPEAKER_00: He is sending us out.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the disciples handing out the loaves and fish, being sent means being used to distribute God's provision to a hungry world.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I said this miracle showed that Jesus was Lord of creation, and He is.
SPEAKER_00: He created all of the ingredients that make bread.
SPEAKER_00: He created people with wisdom and skills to know how to come up with the recipe, to know how to bake the bread.
SPEAKER_00: He created the fish that were served.
SPEAKER_00: So to continue to recreate the loaves and the fish over and over again, that was a small thing for him.
SPEAKER_00: All the disciples had to do was distribute what Jesus had provided for them.
SPEAKER_00: And in that sense, we are distributors.
SPEAKER_00: Just like the guy who drives the bread truck and stocks the shelves with Wonder Bread at Kroger and Publix, or the guy who drives the Coca-Cola truck and fills the freezer with Coca-Cola at Mapco.
SPEAKER_00: We're literally becoming the hands and feet of Jesus in order to meet the needs of this world.
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to look different for every single one of us thinking about being sent out by Jesus, living a sent life.
SPEAKER_00: For some, that may actually mean being sent to the far corners of the world as missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: But for a lot of us, it means being sent to our job, being sent to our house to love and care for our family, to be being sent to our subdivision, to being hands and feet of Jesus in our subdivision.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be thinking right now, well, man, I've messed up so deeply and so often in my life, how can I be of any use?
SPEAKER_00: How can I be sent out?
SPEAKER_00: I know Jesus is forgiving me of my sins, but how can I be of any good to be sent out?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that the shape of your life, not the shape of your life as God originally intended it, but the shape of your life as it is right now, dented, cracked, broken, and glued back together by the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The shape of your life at this exact moment is exactly what God needs to fit along other dented and scarred and broken and glued back together again shapes.
SPEAKER_00: God in his love and mercy is creating this beautiful mosaic out of all of the broken pieces of the world that he is calling back together again.
SPEAKER_00: And the shape, the shape of your life and my life right now, at this very moment, is exactly the shape that God wants to use and send out and fit together with other broken pieces to create this beautiful, magnificent mosaic.
SPEAKER_00: As Dallas Willard said, discipleship is the promise, the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.
SPEAKER_00: That should bring us to our knees, shouldn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we're three weeks into the new year, and I commend you to say yes to Jesus, to live a sent life this year.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna look different for each of us, but it's the same Savior who calls us, who equips us, and who sends us out to every corner of a hungry world.
SPEAKER_00: So I commend you to follow Jesus, go where he leads you in the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to close with this quote from John Wesley that is his interpretation of living a sent life in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do all the good you can by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can as long as ever you can.
SPEAKER_00: Let's do that in the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you are so good to us to call us to you, to invite us in, to equip and empower us to do the very same works that you have done, and then to send us out.
SPEAKER_00: And as Malcolm Geit says, you put your nail-scarred hands in our hands, and you shape us to exactly fit the places that need the shape of our lives that you are molding.
SPEAKER_00: And we are so grateful that that's the way you love us and care for us and send us out.
SPEAKER_00: And we lift this up in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.