Lambs Sent

Transcript

The Gospel According to Luke, chapter 10. The gospel according to Luke, chapter 10. And when you found Luke 10, go ahead and stand with me for the gospel reading this morning.
And I'll remind you as you're turning there, that we are entered into now proper time, or sometimes called ordinary time, which really means that the days now are appointed all the way to Christ the King Sunday. So we look ahead to the last Sunday of the church calendar year, which is Christ the King Sunday. That's one week before Advent begins. And we begin to number those days down or up, I should say so today, for instance, proper nine. And we're certain weeks after Pentecost.
And so it's the proper time, or the proper number is where you get that kind of meaning from. And you can see that there on the front of your bulletin. So don't be confused by that. Just understand that we are in ordinary time, which doesn't mean it's just common. It just means it's numbered.
Okay? So there you go. Now, notice these words this morning from the Gospel of Luke, which is year C's emphasis and verse one of chapter 10. And we'll. We'll skip it 11 to 16 there in just a moment.
So notice these words. This is the word of God. The Lord appointed 70 others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say peace to this house. And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person.
But if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking. Whatever they provide for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick who are there, and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you.
But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this. The kingdom of God has come near. Whoever listens to you, listens to me. And whoever rejects you rejects me.
And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me. Drop down to 16 the 70 returned with joy, saying, lord, in your name, even the demons submit to us. He said to them, I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snake, snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.
Jesus, thank you for your holy word. And we pray now that you'd send your Holy Spirit, who inspired these very words. And we pray that you would not only help us understand, but then help us to do and to follow in your way. We pray in your name. Amen.
And you can be seated.
Well, there's a lot going on in this passage. As you can tell, Jesus is teaching his disciples as he often would. And one of the things we see here that I just want to say up front, backs up my hatred of snakes and my not unnecessary fear of snakes is the fact that never, you know, he says, what? I give you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions. Right, like they're the bad guys.
Yes. No. Some people try to argue, like, oh, no, no, snakes are cool, they're good pets. And I just don't believe that. You know, I just find everywhere in the scriptures, right, that snakes are bad.
So I want to begin there. Just as almost a joke, but nevertheless being serious here. Christianity as a religion is a missionary religion. And what that means is that term missio in the Latin actually just means sent or sending. So Christianity then can be actually said is a sending religion.
It's not one just to be able to read it and then contemplate it and close it up and put it on the shelf. Instead, Christianity as a religion, which what is Christianity, but following Christ is one where we learn so that we can do. Some have even proposed that the Bible not being seen as some textbook, but a manual where it's step one and step two of what you do. In other words, read this and go do it, not contemplate this or think about it, analyze it, and so on and so forth. Now, do we analyze the Scriptures?
Absolutely. Do we study the scriptures? 100%. In fact, the Bible never just calls us to read it, but rather to study, to show ourself approved unto God. And that's not me studying for you, but rather you studying the Scriptures as well.
And in matching up things that I study, along with many countless other Christians and believers and not only around the world, but through time who have done the same and we join those thoughts together and that becomes what we know today as our orthodoxy, which is why we can all affirm, as we just did moments ago, such things as the Nicene Creed, where we learn from Scripture to speak of God in the correct ways. But only learning about God is not enough. It's doing what he says. Jesus says as much, doesn't he? If you love me, you'll understand my commandments.
No, if you love me, you'll do them. We understand them to do them. Now, this means that sometimes, as we may find in our own lives, there's a bit of a disconnect, a short, if you will, where something's not firing correctly from our heart to our sorry for. To our head, to our heart, to our hands. You know, because if we kind of make that tripartite division, our head helps us to understand things, but our heart, you know, sometimes we can understand, for instance, how something works, maybe chemically, but when we see it and experience it, maybe like a fire, there's something that is moving our heart that's different than our head.
Is anybody with me on that? You know how this means, like, you can understand how love works in a biological sort of way, how it affects us, but no one thinks scientifically when they're in love, right? I mean, if you do that, you're just going to mess it up, okay? Trust me, it's going to mess the moment up. Don't think scientifically in those moments.
Just be there with the other person, heart to heart, as we would say. Right? But then we can even go further from the heart where we're moved by something and understand it, but now to doing it. Okay? And so we always want to keep those three in sync and.
And not have a short or not fall short of one or the other. All right? And so this passage here that Jesus is saying to his disciples, which, by the way, disciples in a general way here. Right? Cause not the 12.
Notice, the Lord appointed 70 others. Remember? Was it last week? Yes. In the previous chapter.
In chapter nine, Jesus appoints the 12 okay to go out. And now he appoints 70 others, okay? Now, you may be reading along and saying, sorry, Pastor, but you've got this wrong. My Bible says 72. Anybody see that in there?
No? Okay, well, some say 70, some say 72. Now, this is a classic instance where a quality number is being used. And it can be either. So it can be either 72 or 70, and it means the same thing.
You know what a quality number is, right? Like when you say, man, it's 100 degrees out there. Well, why did you not say it's 97.5 degrees out there? Well, because you're not trying to be quantity, right? Quantitatively accurate, but rather you're just sort of emphasizing it's really hot.
Which we use round numbers, typically. And certain symbolic quality numbers, such as 100 or. I've tried that a thousand times. Well, have you really? No, but thousand is a quality number, right?
70 is this sort of number in the Scriptures, okay? So when we're dealing with. This is not some error in the text, they actually see 70 and 72 as being the exact sort of same thing. And in fact, in the Septuagint, they actually go back in the Old Testament where it's 70, they put 72 if it's consistent in that way. Because for them, in their mind, this is a symbolic number.
Now, what is this number? Well, seven plus ten. And remember, I'm not a numbers gal, okay? So this is all hard for me. Seven plus ten equals seventy.
Right? Well, seven is a perfect number and ten is a complete number. Seven plus ten.
Yes, thank you. Seven times ten is seventy. Okay, what did I say? Did I say that? I was.
I thought I said plus at first. No, seven plus ten.
Seven times ten is seventy. Yes, thank you. I did say plus times. Hey, I told you beforehand, I'm not a mathematician, okay? Never was trained as one.
Don't expect me to be one. Okay? Seven times ten is seventy. It's funny, because in our group, Jack always is the numbers guy. So he's like.
And I'm just like, yeah, that sounds right, Jack, you know, you ought to join our group, by the way, on Wednesdays. I have people there to help me, you know? So 7 times 7. 7 times 10 is 70. Okay?
Whew. The numbers I told you are not my thing. All right? Now, seven, remember, complete number. Why?
Because. Or it's a perfect number. Because it's a whole week, right? You got the whole week. Six falls short.
Seven is complete and perfect. Ten also is a complete number in the Hebraic understanding. So you put those two together and you get another complete number, which means fullness or universality. And this is why it shows up in Genesis 10 as a fullness number. Remember the table of nations?
We have 70 that are given, and what it's representative of is the whole world. All right? But also remember, we find the number 70 here in Exodus. You remember this where God tells. Moses says, look, you can't do it all, okay?
Get some help. And he actually appoints 70 elders in Exodus 24 and again in Numbers 11. And the Lord gives His spirit to those 70, and they take all the court cases or the law cases that then only the ones that are very difficult come to Moses. The rest are handled by the 70. Also in Psalm 90, we have 70 years as the good life or the complete life.
And also in Jeremiah, remember that they were how many years in captivity? A full captivity, 70 years. You remember? Okay. And then also remember in Matthew 18:22, Jesus, when talking to Peter, Peter's like, well, how many times should we forgive?
Right? 7 times 70. Okay, so there you get this number that's out of proportion and out of this world. In other words, never stop forgiving. That's actually the lesson there.
Never stop forgiving and forgive under all circumstances. And that's a hard one though, isn't it? Don't we find in our own life people tough to forgive? If we look closely enough, there's things that you've done that are tough to forgive. That always makes it a little easier for me to forgive other people is to just take one quick gander at the abyss that's in my life and I say, oh Lord, I can forgive because you have so graciously forgiven me.
And so this number 70 is not by accident any more than anything. It's not by accident when Jesus is doing it. Now notice what else he does here. Not only is he sending out to the nations, and by the way, there is a whole tradition of the 70. You can look this up on your own time of each one.
They believe they've got a name for each one of the 70, and they're all saints that went to different places, places in the world and had an impact. And so that's the idea Here is the 12 are kind of the apostolic foundation. And then the 70, just like with Moses, are spreading that influence out into all of the world. But notice how they're sent. They're sent two by two, aren't they?
Not alone. In other words, don't everybody just go off alone and do your own thing. There are no lone wolf Christians. There's no such thing. In fact, if you're doing it alone, you're doing it wrong.
Instead, it's two by two. Even Jesus in his own life, did he not have his best friend John, which makes two of them. And then he had the three, remember? Which makes four total of them. And then of course, the 12.
And so even his own life for us that we are to emulate as an example, shows us that he did ministry not by himself, but with others. Including others. And of course, when we include others, they're not going to do it our way. At times, there'll be a rub between us and them. We can see this in Jesus ministry, can't we?
I mean, just the other week, remember, James and John were ready to push the button to blow everybody up. The nuclear button, remember, hey, Jesus, they rejected you. Can I push the button? No. It's not what we're here for, okay?
And so two by two here, he sends them out. Because when Christ ordains us for ministry and all of us are ordered for ministry in Christ Church, he sends us out as missionaries, but never alone. Never alone, okay? And so the next thing we bump into here is this statement that really was the impetus for planting this church, Harvest Point. And it says this.
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Okay? That's literally where the name Harvest Point comes from. Is when.
When Jessica and I were praying to start a church, we were still in Mississippi. And the name was given to. To me, as I read that very verse right here is God was saying, I want a church where there are laborers, not just people who gather once a week to check a box, but actually putting their hand to the plow. And he gave us a heart to see that. And we have worked hard to try to do that.
And there are ups and downs in that, to be honest with you. Sometimes there's most of our congregation that are involved in things, other seasons of life or even years of the church life. There haven't been. And that's a sad reality because we then fall into becoming a statistic where there's typically 20% of the people doing 80% of the work and 80% of the people doing only about 20% of the work. And of course, that's a known statistic within the church world that we would love to get above that and better than that, okay?
Not just so we can say we beat a statistic, but so we can literally obey Christ. All right? Because he wants us to be laborers. And notice what he says here. Pray.
In other words, if we want to see laborers in the harvest and notice this. Cause this is challenging to me, and I hope it challenges you. But Jesus is saying the harvest is plentiful, which means there's already people ready to be plucked out of the fire, so to speak, and placed in his church. What he's looking for, the lack, is not in the harvest itself, but Rather, in the laborers who are willing to go out and proclaim the kingdom of God. That's challenging to me because sometimes I look around and it seems like no one cares.
It seems like nobody has any mind for God or the things of God or a heart for the world or a heart for the lost. I'm always challenged by my great grandmother who's passed on to be with the Lord now. But every time she prayed, every time. I mean, you just be like, granny, would you pray for our meal? It's going to be there.
She would pray for the lost. And when she began to pray for the lost, she began to weep every single time. And she wasn't making it up. You know, some people try to become emotional to make you emotional. She would do it because she actually had a heart for the lost, for those who were lost and without God, for those that didn't know him.
And she would pray now she was homebound. And then she would turn her praying toward me, if you. If I was around, or whoever else, and say as he goes, lord, help him care for the lost and help him be a mouthpiece for you. And it's challenging. It's challenging because sometimes we don't have a heart for those who don't know God.
We see them as the enemy, in fact. And that is not how Jesus sees it. Instead, he says to us, clearly, the harvest is plentiful. The laborers, though they are few. And so what do we do?
Well, we ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers. But notice this, not only to sit. So we say, lord, send more workers. Notice the next verse. Go your own.
Go on your way. So you almost are the answer to your own prayer. There's. I think that's meant to almost be comical, except serious is, lord, send laborers out to help these lost people. And the Lord says, okay, go.
Okay, Lord. Yes, send them out. Yes, you. Here I am, Lord. Let's be like Isaiah, send me.
If we could just raise our hand today and say, lord, send me now. Notice. Notice. Not to Zimbabwe, not to Iran. I think he's wanting to send you to your apartment complex.
I think he wants to send you to your neighbors, as difficult sometimes as they are to live with. I think he wants to send you to your family to witness to Christ's goodness. And you know what? Your family's the toughest place to witness because they really know you. Your neighbor, they don't really know you.
They know some things about you. They don't really know everything. Your co worker, same thing. But your Family, they see the best and worst of you. And for you to still testify to God's goodness and to still witness in those circumstances that's really ground zero for our faith.
Isn't really, is. It actually is. It's where it begins. But it doesn't end there. Now, we can go to Zimbabwe and all these other places, Mexico, etc.
But first, it's where you are that he wants to plant you. It's who you're already around. Remember, the harvest is plentiful where you are. Therefore, pray to him and then notice, go on your way. So go on your way.
I release you. Which is the whole point of Jesus appointing these 70.
Now, notice this. He sends them out as lambs among wolves. Did you catch that in the reading? I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very good.
In other words, he doesn't send us out as knights in armor with spears and swords to slay the wolves. That'd be cool, maybe.
But rather as lambs in the midst of wolves. You know, I kind of thought this morning of the Hobbit. Remember, remember? And you've got these little Hobbits that are running around and Dwarves, okay? And they're trying to escape, these wolves of Sauron, essentially.
And they're nasty. Well, you remember those wolves from the Hobbit? They're, ooh, man, send a chill up your back, you know? And these little. What are these little Dwarves and Hobbits gonna do?
Right. That's. Yeah, that's what he's talking about here. Like, that's the kind of journey. If you thought the Christian journey was something boring, you haven't seen it yet.
There's demonic influences at work that are like wolves.
And, you know, part of witnessing to Christ in the world is to say to people, come and see. Right? And we do that from time to time. We have a big day, like a friend day, for instance, where we say, hey, come and see what's going on at our church and how we worship and come and see what's going on there. Even Jesus, remember when he was calling the first disciples, they said, come and see what the Lord has said.
Right? And that's certainly one thing is come and see. But the other one is taste and see that the Lord is good. How can the world taste and see unless they take a bite out of us?
And, you know, I think that's exactly what the Lord is calling us to, is to be a sacrificial lamb, like he was.
You see, we think, lord, if you want your name to go out into all the world. God, give me the most power, give me a platform, and I will spread your name. I promise to do that when you give me that million dollars or million followers, right? You give me that, you give me a platform and I'm gonna speak your name. Thanks be to God.
Glory to God. I won that game or whatever it is, and that's one way, but it's not the typical way. The typical way and Jesus way was not to get on Roman CNN back in the day, okay, and say, hey guys, I'm here to save the world. And I just want to say I'd love for you to come. No, instead, he took the sacrificial path, didn't he?
And by doing so. And many people thought this is a lost cause. I mean, you've got a ragtag bunch of Jews that aren't. I mean, in the armpit of the kingdom Jerusalem with a Messiah figure who's now dead and gone. This is not going to work out well.
And yet today, most of us can't even name the Roman Caesars. And we go look at the remains of the Roman Empire. Whereas the church is stronger than ever. With King Jesus on the throne, every kingdom since him has come and gone, and every kingdom will come and go, but his kingdom will last forever. The Church is stronger than ever around the world.
There are Christians in Iran and China. The Middle east is exploding with converts. I know you won't hear it on the news because that doesn't get broadcasted, but it's happening even in the Muslim world. There's great conversions to Christianity right now. People are dreaming of Jesus and then meeting him in a saving way and risking their very lives in places like Saudi Arabia where it's illegal to convert.
Same thing in India and so on and so forth. Just because it seems that Christianity is boring and dead here in America doesn't mean that that only America is the only Christian version. That's insane. No, the Church is universal. It's Catholic in its reach and breadth and it will never go away.
There's not one nation on earth that could ever crush it. And that ought to give us confidence today to proclaim the gospel and to see that the harvest is truly plentiful, even in places of persecution, maybe mostly in places of persecution. And so, yes, even now he's sending Jesus, is sending those precious souls, our brothers and sisters, into wolves as lambs. How much more ought we in America who don't have that overbearing persecution? We might get made fun of.
Boo hoo. Like, let's get real.
I might get talked about at work. Big deal. You might lose your job. Okay. Like, is Jesus worth that?
I think he is. Can't you get another job in America? Absolutely. In another country, In a Muslim country? No.
And yet they still stand up. That ought to encourage us here to have faith enough to proclaim Christ in all sorts of ways. Now, one way to do that is when we're going through a tough time. People watch you when you're going through a tough time, when you're going through crisis, people look at you and even yourself, you're like, the truth comes out. It's almost like, you know, you're this glass of water, if you will.
And when you get bumped, you know, somebody bumps your arm, it's going to. What's in you will spill out. And all of us are going to get bumped in life, every one of us, we're moving about, we're going to get bumped. And what comes out of us, sometimes we're surprised by, but it's revealing to us. And in those moments we must.
When sin comes out, when anger comes out, when hatred comes out, when unforgiveness comes out, we must repent and believe. Confessing our sins, exposing that darkness to light.
Okay, remember that you're always going to go through tests. And the tests are not so that God can know where you are. It's for you to know where you are. He's a good teacher. Right?
And all good teachers give tests. Can I tell you though, good teachers, tests are often very difficult because they actually want you to learn.
And you know, Jesus tests, they can be hard. They can get right down to the core of who we are. But he's asking you to do it and to go through it, because you don't know who you are. The heart is deceitful above all things, the scripture says, who could know it? God can, but it must be revealed to even us.
That's why Abraham went through a tough time. A time of testing. And so will you. And so. But it can be a time where others can witness to the grace of God in our life.
Now notice whether they go to a town or to a house and they're accepted or. Or they're rejected. Either way, when you're accepted, the kingdom of God has come near. When you're rejected, the kingdom of God has come near. Same thing.
The acceptance or rejected is not on us. We don't force. Christianity is not by the end of the spear. That's not how we convert people. It's by the love of God.
Not by force, ever. Grace, not force.
And then finally we have here this powerful saying, whoever listens to you, listens to me. That is to say, the Gospel that's been passed down to this very morning in this house of worship. Whoever listens to you, listens to me. And whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the One who sent me, who is the Father.
So long as we're preaching the Scriptures here from this pulpit and orthodox Christianity, which has been passed down apostolic, then when you reject this message, it's a rejection of Jesus himself. He says, but when you accept, it is also an acceptance. When you come to the Lord's table, for instance, it's an acceptance of all that he's done and all that he said.
And then the last part of our story today is this, of what Jesus said. The 70 returned with joy, saying, lord, even the demons submit to us.
Now, some of us may stop right there and say, really, though, like, it's interesting, there's two things that are mentioned here that they do. One, heal the sick, which we oftentimes rely on doctors and nurses. Which is a secondary cause of healing. 100%. We can bring it about by this or by this procedure or that medicine, but all of us are not trained like that.
These 70 were sent out to heal the sick. They didn't go first to medical school. So what does that mean? It means that when we encounter those who are physically ill, it's. It doesn't just mean sin sick, which certainly it means that too, but I think it means physically sick.
We are to pray for them, and we do that here. We've done that just the other week. We prayed together as we anointed with oil for the healing of the sick. And if you're in the medical profession, it's a great practice to, yes, use the secondary causes, but also go to the first cause, himself. Jesus say, lord, would you heal this person?
Maybe you heal them through my hands. Maybe you heal them directly. Either way, we pray for healing, and we should. Sickness is something that obstructs us from worshiping and obeying Christ. And ultimately one day we'll all be healed.
Isn't that good news, man? It's good news. The older we get, it gets even better news, right? It just gets better and better and better to think about that.
Amen. But what about this business of demons? That's the second thing. Sickness. Okay, demons, are we really supposed to all have a ministry against the demonic?
And the answer is yes. The short answer Is yes. Now some of us are called perhaps to be exorcists, and that's a real office within the church that some specialize in. But most of us are sort of pseudo exorcist is. We do our small part, but are not experts in this matter.
And really this whole thing of the demonic realm is quite common in the Gospels, but I find it's not very common in our modern American experience. And that's okay, except to say that if we reject the demonic and we chalk it up as they were just unscientific in the first century, then we're saying we know more than Jesus knows. And Jesus here specifically mentions when they say, hey, you gave us power over the demonic. And he's like, listen, I watched Satan fall from heaven. In other words, he kicked him out.
He came against me and I kicked him out. I know all about that realm where. When you don't. So here's a point where we need to trust Jesus and accept that we are accessible to a demonic realm. And in fact, many of the world movements and cultural shifts are not just accidental.
You ever notice that? You ever think to yourself, like, how did, for instance, with the sexual revolution back in the 60s and seven 70s, it's shaped so much, you're thinking, how did that get coordinated? Like, who did that? The demonic. The demonic.
And then we follow along and look how much wreckage is left in the train of that.
When we speak about the demonic, there's typically three ways that we encounter demonic activity in our life. The first and worst and most uncommon is demon possession. We've all heard about it, maybe few of us have witnessed it.
I'm reluctant to even talk about some of my experiences there. But I've been in the same room or near someone who was possessed, and that's not a badge of honor. Maybe you have as well. And that's where the whole wheel is gripped by possession of a demon or multiple demons. And Jesus, of course, encountered this.
Now, demon possession can't happen to someone who's filled with the spirit. If you're filled with God's holy spirit, if you are a born again born of the spirit, that's impossible to be possessed unless you open yourself to directly up to that, rejecting God's spirit and giving yourself to another spirit through a Ouija board or some seance or occultic activity. And people are very much into that right now, by the way, studying it. Even at universities. It's.
It's demonic witchcraft. That's just not something for Halloween, you understand? That's a Real presence that you're inviting in. Okay, now that's the worst one. But less common, more common is what we call demon oppression.
It's where the demonic has some sort of grip on our life, but it's not possession. We still are continent, if you will, and able to control ourselves some of the time, but there's a grip on our life in that particular area and it's gripping. That's often referred to as demon oppression. Now, where that line is between the psychological and the demonic is gray to us. We just don't know.
It's very difficult. And it takes someone trained in discernment to be honest with you to really look into that situation and tell it's not. Sometimes it's medical, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's spiritual. And it's very difficult to know the difference between that and sometimes we just don't know. Okay?
And some things are not for us to know, to be honest in this realm, because this is a realm that's otherworldly for us.
In other words, it's not natural, it's supernatural. Okay? Now the most common demonic encounter that all of us in this room have had, all of us is of course, temptation. Temptation, temptation by the enemy. And the Bible tells us we will be tempted by Satan, by demons.
We will be tempted. When you feel temptation, things that you know, like just where did that come from?
That is demonic. And we must resist the devil, the Bible says, so that he will flee. And sometimes we must flee the situation because we maybe can't control ourselves and we know it. Then get out. Like Joseph.
Get out. Run. So possession, oppression and temptation are the most well known forms of the demonic that we encounter. Listen, if you have children, pray over them against the enemy. There is an enemy at work, wants to sift their soul, kill, steal and destroy.
That's what he wants. But you know, what Christ wants is fullness of life, joy in the Holy Spirit, love abounding and shed forth in our life to others overflowingly. And here's the good news. Even Jesus as a human encountered temptation, didn't he? So it's not uncommon.
In fact, it's par for the course for all of us. We will be tempted, but we do not have to give in to that temptation. Temptation inevitably begins in the mind. And here's what the scripture says. Take every thought captive and submit it to God.
Take every thought. I don't care if you have to pray 30 times within 30 seconds. Lord, help me, Lord, help me, do it until you can take that thought Captive. And you know what? There's an evil spirited move right now in generational curses or however you want to say, it doesn't matter, I don't know.
But of anxiety and depression, especially in places that have a lot of stuff, and we have a lot of stuff in America, those people we find are depressed and anxious as ever, gripped by it. Listen, that's not all medical. Some of that is demonic. And we need to pray specifically against that over our children, over our own lives. That God would break those bonds, that he would sever that connection or power from that other realm.
Now, I say all that to say this and in where Jesus ends here. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that I gave you power over the demonic, but rather that your names are written in heaven. We have an otherworldly citizenship. Yes, we have national citizenship, perhaps as an American or whatever you might be, but our true citizenship membership is in heaven, untouchable by national politics or wars or anything else. And as a Christian, when we look across the landscape, politically or geographically, especially during wartime, understand our brothers and sisters are over in those countries like they actually are.
You know, you can't just be like, oh yeah, you just need to bomb the heck out of those people, you know, because we hate those. Well, okay, well, hold on. Those people oftentimes include our brothers and sisters. Just realize that even in places that are nasty, like China and their oppressive communism, we have millions and millions more than American. There's more Chinese Christians than American Christians today.
They're our brothers and sisters. So that weighs out. And that's not to say a little something political here. And that is our politics must submit to the kingdom and ultimately to the king himself. All right.
To the king himself. All right, good. So are you ready to be sent out as lambs among wolves? Are you ready to tread on scorpions and snakes? Amen.
Yes. That demonic stuff in our life, let's push it out in the name of Jesus Christ and always use his name. They hate his name. It better be his name and not you.
You say, great, I think I'm ready for this journey. What do I need to do? Trust and obey. It's what we just sang, isn't it? Trust and obey.
Notice that does that joins both the things that Jesus teaching here. Trust and then obey. Let's do it. Put our hand to the plow. Okay.
Not just trust, but obey. Not just obey, but trust. We do both. And we're a holistic Christian. We're a holistic follower of Jesus Christ.
He can make us whole not divided, not Pharisaical, but whole.
So, Jesus, help us today to be made whole by your spirit. Help us to have a single eye. Focus on the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, as you fill us with your love, with faith and with hope everlasting. We pray in your name. Amen.
May it be so.