Making Disciples | Luke 10:1-3

Luke 10:1-3  |  Chad Williams

Transcript

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Good morning, Orchard Church family. It's good to see everyone this morning. My name is Chad Williams. I'm the lead pastor of Building 28 Church down in Clearwater, Florida, as Pastor Cody mentioned earlier. It's truly an honor to be with you this morning. If you have your Bibles, open them to Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10. While you're turning, let me say this. I'm just so incredibly thankful to call Pastor Cody a friend and a partner in the gospel. As he said, I've known him for several years, and just watching God powerfully move in his life as he makes disciples wherever he is. I've just been a testimony to the Lord's faithfulness in his life and the gifts and the character that Cody has. And so I'm deeply grateful for him. So as we open God's word, we look at Luke chapter 10, beginning in verse 1. I'm going to read through verse 3, and then we're going to pray together. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way. Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this holy, inspired, inerrant word that we have just read. We do now pray you would press it into our hearts and into our lives. I pray for those in this room who have never trusted you, Jesus, who have never repented of their sins and believed upon your finished work. God, I pray today you would do that work among us. I pray for those in this room who have perhaps grown cold and indifferent. I pray today they would be set ablaze by the call of Christ. Lord, we need you. Holy Spirit, would you come? Minister to our hearts this Christ of your scriptures. And we ask all this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Some things are more painful to forget than others. One important question you never want to forget the answer to what's the password? Stefan Thomas does not know. Thomas is a computer programmer. He lives in San Francisco. And as of this morning, he has two guesses left to recall a password that is worth roughly four hundred million dollars. If he can remember this password, the password would unlock a small hard drive called an iron key. Years ago, Thomas scribbled the password of the iron key on a small piece of paper, and then he forgot it. He misplaced the small piece of paper that with it contained over 7,000 Bitcoin. It's really simple. No password, no key, no Bitcoin wallet, no $400 million. Now, Iron Key only allows its users 10 password attempts before it seizes up and encrypts the contents of the drive forever. Thomas has now tried eight times to put in the correct password to open this hard drive, and he has failed on every occasion. None of them have worked. Forgetting this one really important thing haunts him constantly. Thomas said recently, quote, I just lay in bed and think about it all the time, and then I go to the computer with some new strategy to come up with a password that does not work, and I get desperate all over again. There is a real danger in forgetting really important things. Here's how we're going to break this sermon up part one and part two. Part one, the mission of making disciples, and then part two, essential truths for making disciples. So let's get right to work. We begin with part one, the mission of making disciples. Look with me again at Luke chapter 10, verse 1. The text says, after this, the Lord appointed 72 others and set them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. Every word in this verse matters immensely. One of the many things that binds our two churches together is a commitment to opening God's word every week and walking verse by verse through a passage of Scripture. And like you guys here at the Orchard, Billy 28 is in a season of growth as well. And when I see the kind of spiritual fruitfulness that you're seeing here in this church, and I'm seeing in Clearwater, Florida, I'm amazed, but I'm also not surprised. Let me tell you why. Because the word is preached here. So when I see the hard work that Pastor Cody and the elders and the preaching team and the worship team do every week to keep the word of God central in everything that you do as a church, I fully expect God to move in powerful, powerful ways. Church, how will anyone come to know Jesus here in Collierville or the Mid South? How will spiritual revival happen in places of spiritual darkness around the world? How will every single disciple ultimately be made? Only by the miraculous power of the word of God. That's our hope. And it's always been this way. From Genesis 1, it was the Word of God creating life. And only where the Word is central is true growth possible. I truly believe this. Any bit of gospel growth and fruitfulness, this church has ever or will ever experience has nothing to do with men or methods. It can be traced to the power of the word of God. Let me tell you what the word of God makes crystal clear. Followers of Jesus are called to make disciples. This is the consistent command of Jesus' ministry, culminating, of course, in the great commission found in Matthew 28. And we read this in verses 18 through 20. They're in the final chapter of Matthew. And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And then here's a promise: Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. It's important to remember that the one speaking here is the post-resurrected King Jesus, who has defeated death. And he is giving a commission here. He is commanding us to do something. And let's be honest, commands hit different from suggestions. They hit different. Because on the driver's side wall inside the garage, there was written the words, stop, Judy. All caps with an exclamation point. It was a command. Apparently, my brother Larry was terrified that Judy was going to crash her car right into the house unless he wrote this very explicit command to make sure she did not do that. Now you put a question mark at the end of Stop Judy, it just doesn't hit the same way, does it? Stop Judy, you know, like that doesn't do it. No, stop Judy, that's the command that keeps you out of the living room with your car. Commands hit different from suggestions. Nothing about the Great Commission is a suggestion. So if our undeniable assignment is making disciples, the only question we have to ask now is how? How are we going to do that? That leads us to our text this morning, here in Luke 10 and part two, Essential Truths for Making Disciples. Look again with me at verse 1 there in Luke chapter 10. The text says that after this the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And what we're seeing happening in Luke chapter 10 is a pretty major transition unfolding in Jesus' ministry. Jesus Galilean ministry is coming to an end. And a new era in his ministry is beginning. He is beginning his march towards Jerusalem. He's heading to Jerusalem to die. Everything now is shifting. This journey would have taken Jesus several months to complete as he worked his way down through Judea. But what we are seeing here is that Jesus knows he is closer to the cross, therefore closer to the end of his earthly ministry and life. And now his disciple making shifts its focus from teaching the crowds to equipping disciples. He gets really focused and really intentional with a smaller group of people. In church, old boy, that's our calling as well. In the deploying of these 70 disciples here, we see Jesus' ministry was not limited to how many he could disciple personally. Jesus made disciples who then made disciples. Brothers and sisters, our impact in this life for the kingdom of God, for Christ, cannot be about how many disciples we can personally make. We just do not have an infinite amount of time. And on top of that, unlike Jesus, we have no idea how much time we have left. I was reminded of this again. Just yesterday, back in Atlanta, I buried the wife of a dear friend, passed away suddenly and tragically during a routine surgery. Gone. She had no idea. Her family, of course, had no idea. Her time was up. Church, because our time is limited, our impact for Christ will finally on the last day be measured by how those that we disciple make disciples. That's how you turn a life into a legacy of disciple making that continues long after you're gone. Jesus originally chooses and sends 12, and now, a chapter later, he sends 70. And for those of you keeping score at home, that's a 483% increase in the number of disciples being deployed. Look again at verse 1. The Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two. Now the 72 number here is interesting. In this sending of 72, it would appear we're seeing a foreshadowing of this global sending that happens in Matthew 28 of all disciples. The idea here is discipleship's gonna be for all people and for all nations. There's one Gentile speaking to a room filled with him. I'm really grateful for that. That the gospel went beyond these 72 and the 12 and the three. Now what's interesting here is that Jesus takes this large number of disciples and he sends them out in smaller groups. He sends them out two by two, actually. That's what the text says. He appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him two by two. So just as he sent the 12 apostles out in chapter 9, 2 by 2, here he sends out the 72 2 by 2 as well. Why? Well, first and foremost, it was well established, Old Testament practice, to confirm any testimony with two witnesses. In Deuteronomy 19, verse 15, we read, only in the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. Two witnesses were the minimum requirement needed to validate any message. And Jesus sends them out two by two. This is the obvious reason for Jesus doing that. But I think Jesus had another reason in mind as well. And that leads me to the first essential truth for making disciples. Here it is: the gift of Christian community. The gift of Christian community. If we are going to make disciples, we will have to embrace the reality that we cannot do it alone. Think about this for a moment. In sending them out two by two, Jesus intentionally limits the number of towns they would have been able to reach. Think about that for a moment. Jesus could have sent out 72 disciples to 72 villages. He chose to send out the 72 in pairs, so he only reaches 35, 36 different towns. Jesus' sending of the 72 in pairs was not only an act done in accordance with the biblical law, it was also done in accordance with biblical wisdom. We read this in Ecclesiastes 4, starting in verse 9. Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A three-chord, a threefold cord is not quickly broken. We see this pattern of two by two play out in the early church as well. We see it with Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13. We see it with Judas, the good one, and Silas in Acts 15. Barnabas and Mark in Acts 15, Paul and Silas in Acts 15, Timothy and Erasmus in Acts 19. Here's the point. In his sending of the 272, 2x2, Jesus chooses sustainability and the spiritual health of his disciples over sheer numbers. If I can testify to this for just a second, I have seen far more solo disciples flame out than pairs of disciples flame out. I've spent the last 15 years of my life as a lead pastor, first planting a church and then working with countless church planters during my time. And I can tell you firsthand the body count, the sheer body count of lone wolf Christians attempting to do the Christian life on their own, it's really, really high. Like disturbingly high. I don't care how gifted you are, I don't care how equipped you are, how educated you are, how spiritually mature you think you are, the follower of Jesus who walks alone is in constant danger. If you've been hanging around the orchard for a while and have not done this, let me encourage you. A great place to start making disciples is to find a person. Like a person. A person you can pair up with, pray with, check on, meet with, read the Bible with, hold accountable, confess into, like just start with one. Back at buildings 28, I've challenged our church. Find three people in your life. Find a Paul you can pour, uh, they can pour into you, find a Timothy you can pour into, and find a Barnabas you can walk with. Like build that into your life. Watch how powerfully God moves. Back in 2012, I was blessed to go to Israel to take a class. One of the coolest experiences of my life was going down to the Dead Sea. And the Dead Sea is called the Dead Sea because there is no life in it. You can fish all day in the Dead Sea. You're not catching anything. Why? The mineral concentration makes it impossible for the water to sustain life. What's up with all the minerals? Well, the minerals accumulate for this reason: very little water goes in and nothing goes out. That describes a lot of Christians, I know. Very little poured in, very infrequently, and nothing being poured out. Every follower of Jesus needs someone pouring into them and someone they're pouring into as well. If we're gonna make disciples, we must embrace the gift of Christian community. But that's not all we need. And that leads us to our second essential truth for making disciples, the presence of gospel urgency. Verse 2 there in Luke 10. And he said to them, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this verse preached. I've heard it preached in churches, I've heard it at missions, conferences, evangelism, classes. Uh, just about any ministry context that needs more volunteers has used this particular passage in some way. Most people in and around ministry use this verse to say, hey, uh, we have a lot of work to do and we need your help. This verse is usually taught in such a way that Jesus appears to be in a position of need. Here's the only problem with that. Jesus needs nothing. Nothing. Like we can all quit and go home. Jesus is still on the throne. And he's still gonna build his kingdom. We just missed out on being a part of it. Jesus was the least needy person who ever lived. I mean, he's been turning seemingly willing disciples down left and right throughout the gospels to this point. This verse is not about anything Jesus lacks, it's about what we lack, and that is urgency. The harvest is plentable, is another way of saying time is short, and based on the colors of the field, the time for reaping and bringing in is now. In John 4 35, we read this do not say there are yet four months, and then comes the harvest. Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see the fields are white for harvest. When a field was white for harvest, the farmer knew he was running out of time, and an urgent response was the only proper response. In the ancient world, this would have been a disaster. Fields, ripe for harvest with a labor shortage, would mean losing a large percentage of your crop? A farmer would then go into town, and he would look to hire any additional available workers to help meet this need. Every single person who heard Jesus say these words would understand the level of urgency required in such a situation. Church, does our urgency to make disciples match the level of urgency Jesus is calling us to here? That's the question. Well, let's get more personal. If you're a professing Christian here today, what is your level of urgency? Like, do you see the urgent need for discipleship in your home? Do you see the urgent need for evangelism among the non-Christians in your life? Can we be really honest? There's a reason that Christians who make a big deal out of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, for example, tend to have a reputation at least for low levels of evangelistic urgency. I'll confess I went through a season about 10 years ago where I just felt like the zeal for evangelism in my life was waning. And I didn't really know why. And let me say this: the problem was not God's sovereignty, the problem was my lack of urgency. You see, if your theology is making you less urgent for the gospel to be known, you have a deficient theology. It's not hard to stand up here and say that, but but here's the truth it's hard to live it. It's hard to live with this level of urgency. So, so confession time. Right after my oldest daughter was born in our first little house that my wife Kaylee and I had, we had a neighbor who was kind of the bane of my existence, if I'm being really honest. No one wants a neighbor when you have a newborn who's blaring music at 2 a.m. as loud as they can possibly blare it. And one morning after another night of two hours of sleep, I come into the living room and I just kind of crashed out about this. And my wife just kind of sat there and she let me rant and rave for a few minutes. And I ended with like very self-righteously, I'm gonna go tell him what I think. And then my wife says, or you could go share the gospel with him, Pastor. I never recovered from that. I mean, the the wound from that. And do you know what I did after she said that? I went back to sleep. I was really tired. I was exhausted. I hadn't slept a day. No, no, no. I built a relationship with my neighbor. I went over one afternoon and I shared the gospel with him. About a year later, I baptized him. Listen, we serve a God who changes stories and transforms and creates new identities. I needed to be reminded of that truth. Nothing fuels urgency like seeing the transformation of the gospel up close and personal. The sovereignty of God should not make us less urgent, it should make us less anxious. God moves, God works. So important. Jesus here is communicating a sense of urgency that we should feel about the great need for the gospel in the world and this lack of laborers. Laborers is ergates in the Greek. It literally means one who affects something or brings about an effect through exertion or effort, whether mental or physical. So here Jesus is describing people willing to serve, willing to sacrifice, willing to suffer if necessary, to see disciples made. And he's telling us there's a massive supply and demand issue here. Think about the way Jesus describes the situation, how we often think of it. We often think, oh, there's so many of us poor Christians in the world ready to share Jesus, so few in this cold, spiritually dark place willing to hear it. And Jesus says, no, no, no, actually the opposite is true. Jesus says there's far more people willing to hear the gospel than there are people willing to share it. Jesus says there are far more opportunities for evangelism and discipleship than there are people willing to seize them. Do not say there are yet four months. And then comes the harvest. No, it's here now, Jesus says. Right in front of you. The problem Jesus lays out is a lack of labors, not a lack of work to do. Consider this first on a global scale. Right now, living on planet Earth, there are 3.4 billion people who we know have not rejected Jesus because they've never even heard of Jesus because they're unreached. No access to the gospel. Do not say there are yet four months. And then comes the harvest. Or consider the tremendous amount of discipleship work needed on a national and local level. In one recent poll, non-Christians in America were asked if they were willing to hear a short gospel presentation. 70% of them said yes. I'll hear you out. Another 80% said if they were invited to a church by a Christian friend, they would go. Let's see if they're telling the truth. Whatever you do, do not say there are yet four months, and then comes the harvest. No, it's here now. Don't miss this. The demands of the harvest always exceed the supply of the workers. We need hearts that see the urgent need for the gospel all around us. And that leads me to our third and final essential for making disciples: the necessity of prayer. Jesus tells us what our urgent response to this ripe harvest and the lack of laborers should be. He says, therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest there in verse 2. Pray earnestly. Plead. This word we translate into two English words. Pray earnestly. It's one word in the Greek. It simply means to passionately plead. There's a desperation Jesus wants us to pray with. A desperation that's rooted in compassion for the lost. I don't know about you. I'm often too indifferent to lostness. But as a former lost soul, I am thankful Jesus is not indifferent to the lost. And Jesus tells us we are to plead that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into his harvest. And who's the Lord of the harvest here? Jesus. Jesus. You see, to say Jesus is Lord of the harvest is to also say the crop belongs to him as well. The Lord of the harvest is the one who lived a perfect life, you and I have all failed to live, and laid it down to pay the penalty for our sin by the means of his own shed blood. That whosoever would repent of their sins and trust in him will be gathered in by the Lord of the harvest. Man, that's good news. It's good news. Church, don't miss this. Prayer is the means by which God accomplishes the very things He ordains. In this sense, prayer, you see, is our participation in providence. It's easy to hear a passage preached like this and think this is for someone else, but let's make this personal. Do you have a lost friend or family member you want to see come to know Christ? I bet you do. Do you have a lost friend you care very deeply about that you want to see come to Christ? What about your children? What about your adult children? Do they know the Lord? What about your grandchildren? Do you see the great need for discipleship in your own home and the schools in our community? Do not stay there yet four months. And then comes the harvest. We're called to make disciples. We're called to do so by embracing the gift of Christian community, possessing a heart filled with gospel urgency, and then valuing the necessity of prayer in it all. And here's the heartwarming promise Jesus sends us with. Verse 3. Go your way. Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. No win-one for the gipper there. No uh, hey, go get them, champ. Like, nope, I'm sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. As we make disciples in this world, Jesus says we're gonna be surrounded by very real spiritual dangers. Making disciples is dangerous work in a fallen world. So here's a question I want to ask us. How then, if we are sent out as lambs in the midst of wolves, how do we, with any degree of confidence, go and make disciples? Well, the answer is not found in the identity of the sent, it's found in the identity of the sender. Jesus says, Go your way, behold, I am sending you. How can lambs walk confidently among wolves? Because they are accompanied by a lion. Listen, wolves devour lambs. That's true. But lions devour wolves. That's also true. When I consider who I am as I live the Christian life, like my weaknesses, my inability, well, I am rightly fearful as I go. I am a limb. But when I consider who sent me, who goes with me, I'm rightfully at peace, for he is the lion. The enemy is a worthy adversary. That's true, but Jesus is a far more worthy protector and defender of his people. We read this in John 10, verse 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. There's your promise, there's your encouragement to go. Do not stay there yet four minutes. And then comes the harvest. This is good news. I'll close the words of Charles Spurgeon in a sermon he preached from this text. Well over a century ago. Patience is a virtue, but sometimes decision is a greater one. To wait long is well, but not when the harvest is ripe and ready, for then it will lie upon the ground and rot and so be spoiled. To wait may be well, but not when men are dying, nay, when hell is filling, not when immortal souls are in jeopardy, not when the plague is raging, and we have today to stand between the living and the dead and wave the censor of the gospel of Jesus Christ that the plague may be staked. Let's pray.