The Kingdom of God has Come Near You – Luke 19:1-25 – Justin Sytsma

Turn this on. Grant gave his full endorsement

for me to wear this the whole time, but I just, I told him I

was like, I just I don't think I can do it.

I just you know, anyway, so but just needed to just needed to

represent just needed to represent, right morning.

My name is Justin. I serve as one of the pastors

here at Court Rights and it is a privilege to be with you.

As always. I just want to give a quick

shout out before we before we go any further.

Yesterday, in addition to a ball game, there were some people out

at Bruce and Kathy Dunks Farm out in the country there getting

out of the earth, something like 3400, 3800 lbs of potatoes.

So yes, I just, I just want to give a shout out to people who

were working like no other in like the random 27° October

heats. Yeah.

So just a I'm, we're so thankful for this year's harvest and we

will continue to provide some updates in that way.

But just what a what a blessing that will be to the many mouths,

the hundreds of mouths that that will go to feed.

So thank you Lord. Alright, so for those who

haven't been around, we are working section by section into

the gossip through the Gospel of Luke.

And today we are starting Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Today's a longer reading. I'm giving you a warning now.

And at first glance, some of these sections may not seem like

they interconnect the way that some others do, but I actually

think we're going to see some fascinating connections as we go

along here. So just hold with me as we go

through. But just as a as a little bit of

a backdrop, last week Pastor Grant preached a very

challenging passage where Jesus not so gently encouraged his

followers to go all in. He said that's not always gonna

be comfortable, that is going to disrupt our comfort zone, that

it may involve sacrifice, that it may look differently than

some of our pre supposed assumptions about what it takes

to follow Jesus. But today, in this passage, we

get to see a little bit of the payoff of that, the resulting

joy that comes from a life lived as a disciple for Jesus.

Before we read, though, let me pray as you guide us, God by

your word and by your spirits, that in your light we may see

lights, that in your truth that we would find wisdom, and that

in Your will discover your peace through Jesus.

Amen. Amen.

So this is Luke 10 starting at verse one.

I'll try to follow it in both spots here.

So after the lawyer, after the Lord, appointed 72 others and

sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place

where he was about to go, He told them the harvest is

plentiful, plentiful, but the workers are few.

Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to go to send out

workers into his harvest field. Go.

I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

Do not take a purse or bag or sandals, and do not greet anyone

on the road when you enter house.

First say peace to this house. If someone who promotes peace is

there, your peace will rest on them.

If not, it will return to you. Stay there eating and drinking

whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages.

Do not move around from house to house.

When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to

you. Heal the sick who are there and

tell them the Kingdom of God has come near to you.

But when you enter a town and and are not welcomed, go into

the streets and say even the dust of your town we wipe from

our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this.

The Kingdom of God has come near.

I tell you it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom

than for that town. Woe to you, Chorazin, Woe to

you, Bethsaida, for if the miracles that were performed in

you had been performed in Tyre inside, and they would have

repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

No, sorry, but it will be more bearable for Tyre inside and at

the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be

lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.

Whoever listens to me. So whoever listens to you

listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me,

but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.

The 72 returned with joy and said, Lord, even the demons

submit to us in your name, He replied, I saw Satan fall like

lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to

trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all of the power

of the enemy. Nothing will harm you.

However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but

rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, I

praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you

have hidden these things from the wise and learned and

revealed them to little children.

Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

All things have been committed to me by my Father.

No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one

who knows who the Father is except the Son, and to those

whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, Blessed are

the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many

prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and did not see it,

and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

This is the way of the Lord. There's something amazing about

a plan coming together, you know, whether it's maybe

something you've been preparing for for a long time and that

thing just finally comes to fruition.

Maybe like a a remote camping trip that required a lot of

mapping and planning out or a cross country road trip or a

business plan or whatever that looks like for you.

For, for us, Lindsey and I, a few years ago, a number of years

ago now, we planned a trip to New York City.

Now, it wasn't like a romantic getaway or anything.

It was more of a pilgrimage for my foster brother, who had

partially grown up in Brooklyn. Now for me, as the primary

driver of this trip, Lindsey did not want to drive in New York

City. And I don't blame her.

I was nervous but ready to do it.

And also, we had a stick shift at the time, and I really,

really did not want to do that, but I did it anyway.

But what I did was leading up to the trip, I went on a Google

Maps and I went outside of the city where we were on on route

to where we're going. And I went down to Street View

and I went down the route all the way through to the parking

garage. Like I knew exactly where we

were going to the point where as I was driving, I maybe do this

three or four times before we left.

And as I'm driving, I'm like, oh, I've been here before.

This is great. I know, I know exactly where I'm

going. And because this analogy is

about plans coming together, I don't actually have anything

dramatic to reports. I did it.

I drove into the city and I, I parked my car and we left it

there for five days and then we left.

I'd nailed it. It's great.

Hopefully you have some stories like that too, where you just

like you, you planned the thing and it went off without a hitch.

It doesn't happen often for me, but it happened in this case.

In Luke 10, we see Jesus's plans coming together all the way back

in Luke 4, Jesus is announcing the kingdom's arrival.

He is, He's announcing freedom for captives and healing for the

sick, for God's Kingdom to be made known on earth.

And initially he starts this small movement, initially just

with him. He's going around and he's

healing people from evil spirits and from their illnesses.

He's proclaiming the Kingdom. And then he picks up some

disciples along the way. It starts with the 12.

And then they travel together and they do and see lots of

mighty works and they get glimmers of insight into who

Jesus is. And then Jesus at the beginning

of Luke Chapter 9, sends the 12 out on a mission very similar to

Luke 9 · chapter mention

what we see today in Luke 10, almost as a little bit of like a

beta test, a trial run to see if these disciples who are of

dubious skill can hack it and they stick the landing.

They do it. They have these, you know, weird

fits of competition afterward and the the infighting and the

judgment and the misunderstanding of Jesus and

all the different things. But they're like they're doing

the thing. It's happening.

But here we're in Luke 10 and Jesus is sending out not just

12, but 72. The plan is starting to come

together. The Kingdom, the good news of

Jesus Christ, the Messiah is being spread across the region.

Now you may notice depending on your translation, if you were

reading from a certain translation, it may say not 72,

it may say 70. The number is ultimately

regardless of whether it is 72 or 70.

I could get into lots of the reasons why, but I would bore

you the numbers ultimately recalling back to the elders

that Moses appointed all the way back independent Duke.

If you read Numbers 11, you see Moses commissioning the 70 + 2

more who stayed back at the camp.

So 70 or 72 depending on how you count.

And that's the way some of the scholars and interpreters have

have understood this over the years.

I just if that in case little things like that are ever like a

stumbling block for you. I don't want that to be

stumbling block for us to enter into this text.

The point remains, however, that the mission is expanding 6 times

the amount of people are being sent out on mission.

This much larger group of disciples are going out in

groups of two in in community, in solidarity to support one

another, and they're gonna cover a lot of ground here.

The good news of the Kingdom is spreading to the nations, and

the speed is picking up. It's accelerating.

This little ragtag group of disciples are growing.

Now. Jesus's instructions for these

disciples here are very similar to what you see in the in in

Luke 9. You know, they're told to let me

just see if I can find it here. Maybe it's not on this one.

Sorry. They're told to pack lightly.

They're told don't bring extras. Receive the hospitality that

people give you. They said, don't go looking for

bigger and better places to stay.

Don't go where you're not welcome.

Just move on. Proclaim peace.

He says, Shalom to all who visit, Heal the sick.

Eat what they put in front of you.

This is a big one where they might not have been following

all of the kosher dietary laws that Jews would have followed.

And he says, just eat what's in front of you.

So there's some peril in what he's asking them to do.

He tells them not to greet anyone on the road, which is

kind of the one extra thing we see here in Luke 10 that feels a

bit like what's happening here. It's not out of rudeness, but

urgency. In this culture, if you greet

someone on the road, you're staying with them for hours,

right? So it's not just like, hey, how

are you? It's not that kind of greeting.

Greetings could take hours. And Jesus knows that the time is

short. This mission cannot wait.

Jesus has his eyes set toward Jerusalem and he wants them to

be single minded in their urgency of this mission.

And whether people receive or reject this message, I want you

to notice something to the people who receive it, he says.

The Kingdom of God has come near to you and to the people who

reject it. It's the same message, he says.

The Kingdom of God has come near same message.

Whether people receive or reject it is up to them.

The Kingdom of God has come near.

I wanna linger on that for just a second.

That phrase. It's easy because we don't think

in terms of kingdoms so much in our world today.

We don't think about that. But I want to just think about

it as the Kingdom of God coming near means that the fullness of

God's presence is being made manifest on earth.

This is a message of hope for people who did not have hope.

This is freedom from sin. This is relief for the

imprisoned or the enslaved. This is healing for the sick,

the injured, or the possessed. This is justice where there has

been injustice. This is a writing of wrongs.

This is God's peace reigning on earth.

Jesus tells the 72 to proclaim peace to anyone who will receive

it. Now.

Peace here, peace that in the way that Jesus uses it is the

Greek word he reigned, which is the exact same word that you

would use in Hebrew, the word Shalom.

The word Shalom, peace, wholeness, completeness.

This is the message of the Kingdom, to proclaim it brings

life and hope and peace. And yes, alongside that it

brings a measure of justice and judgment and correction.

Because when things are not at peace, when there is not Shalom,

when there is not wholeness or fullness, that means there's

something wrong. It means there's something

missing. And so some villages receive

this Shalom of the Kingdom of God and others do not.

And the places that did not receive this message of the

Kingdom of God are in a sense heaping judgment upon

themselves. And Jesus compares.

This is intense. So Jesus compares these cities,

the cities that will not accept. He compares them to Sodom.

Sodom was guilty of a lot of things.

They were guilty of pride. They were guilty of apathy for

the poor. They were and even threatening

sexual violence toward messengers of God.

This would have been a jarring and striking comparison, but in

many ways a fitting one. As Jesus sends these two

messengers, there's again they're being sent two by two.

There was 2 messengers that entered into Sodom, 2 angels of

the Lord. And these two messengers of God

are being sent into these various cities.

And he says, if they do not accept you, their fates is like

solemn. And if you reflect a little bit

more on that, God in that scenario, in that story, is the

one who ultimately enacts judgments and justice on those

places. And so it's another reminder

that when that doesn't happen, move on.

Judgment and justice is not for us to fully enact.

Don't waste your precious energy on trying to convince those who

see who seek to do you harm. Now Jesus's most sharp critiques

here and right here is one of those woes, which is again, not

really language we use, but it's it's kind of fun to say

sometimes woe to you are those who have heard this message.

So and he uses, he says, Chorazin, Bethsaida and

Capernaum. And they've heard the message

and rejected it. They have seen with their very

eyes what God is doing and yet they refuse life in this

Kingdom. Jesus says that the Gentile

village, villages that have never heard this message before,

that they would be better off. They will be better off then

these cities that have heard but rejected.

And honestly, that's a mirror for us.

We too have seen God's goodness and faithfulness.

We have been recipients of God's generous generosity and

blessing. We've known the beauty of

Christian community, and perhaps some of us have even known the

beauty of healing. And we still turn away at times.

This call is to keep turning back toward the life that we

know is good for us in Christ. And perhaps the sharpest

judgment here is that Jesus says that these villages reject the

disciples. They are rejecting Jesus, and

therefore they are rejecting God.

Jesus wants the people to that. He wants people to know this

incredible gift. He wants them to experience the

the joy of the Kingdom. But he's not going to force or

coerce it. But they need to know that they

are rejecting the very God that they claim to follow.

So when the 72 return, they've gone and they've done the thing.

They're bursting with joy. They're bursting with joy, says

they returned with joy and they say, Lord, even the demons

submitted. I want you notice that even the

demons. So Jesus didn't even talk about

demons. He didn't even mention that he's

like, he's like, go heal the sick, go proclaim peace, go

proclaim the Kingdom, do all this.

And they're like, we did all of that plus this.

It's amazing. So like, that's why they're so

overwhelmed with what God did through this mission.

Their joy tells us that they did the thing, that God showed up in

a profound way. And it's in light of their

success that we can make a little bit better sense of what

Jesus says here. Because if you're anything like

me, when you read this, you're like what?

He replied. I saw Satan fall like heaven.

Well, out of context, yeah, it's it seems kind of weird.

It seems a little random, but what he's describing here, what

Jesus is saying, he's not describing a past description of

Satan's fall, which you can read about if you read in Ezekiel and

Isaiah. And he's not just describing

like a future eschatological reality that you read about in

the Book of Revelation at the end of the Scriptures, but he's

talking about a current reality of what is happening in the wake

of the great success of these missionaries going out and doing

the thing. Darkness is being pushed back,

light is breaking through, evil is being trampled on.

Scorpions and snakes. That's a little bit of a

metaphor going back to going back to Moses, where Moses tells

the people that they are able to overcome even the scorpions and

snakes. It says that they can be

trampled upon. Evil is being trampled upon.

Snakes here are also probably referenced back to Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 where you describes this, this image of the serpent

and the serpent being trampled on by the by the seed of Eve.

Light is breaking through, Evil is being trampled upon.

The power and goodness of the Kingdom is prevailing.

Something cosmic, something behind the veil is taking place

here. But Jesus warns them, don't

become too enamored. So he says this, do not rejoice

that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are

written in heaven. Rejoice because you know and are

known by the God of the universe.

He says make the first things. The first things makes the most

important things the thing that you focus on.

Don't focus on the signs. Those are good, those are

beautiful, those are great. Focus on the fact that you are

known by the God of heaven. That's a good reminder.

And then Jesus himself rejoices. He's full of joy through the

spirits. The word that's used there is

different than the disciples rejoicing.

It's this exuberance. I love to think of Jesus that

way. He praises God the Father that

the Kingdom is being revealed through unlikely sources,

unlikely scenarios, unlikely people, children, outsiders,

uneducated, uncouth people. Those that the world overlooks

are often the ones that God uses.

This is grace. Faith is not about intellect or

credentials. It's about an openness to the

things of God. If you're anything like me, at

times I can OK, this is this might feel like a bit of a

dichotomy because you, if you've known me for a length of time,

I'm a I'm a guy who tends to wear my heart on my sleeve a

little bit. I can be emotional, but when it

comes to like theology, I can get very in my head.

I can get very cerebral. Maybe you are that way as well

that you start thinking about, well, what about this

contradiction? What about these different

things happening here? What about all of these

challenges that we face when we look at this concept in

Scripture, right? How many of you are a little bit

more like that? Yeah.

Like there's, there's probably a lot of you that and whether

you're willing to raise your hand or not, that's OK.

You don't have to. There is a challenge for those

of us that are like that sometimes, though.

There's a challenge for us where we can sometimes miss the awe

and wonder factor if we only live in our heads.

William, William Barclay, he puts it like this.

He says Christianity does not mean knowing about Christ, but

knowing Christ, and to do that requires not earthly wisdom, but

heavenly grace that preached to me this week, the childlike

faith, one that experiences all and wonder, one that rejoices in

God's Kingdom coming, one who trusts and follows the words of

Jesus. They truly know and are known by

Christ. And then at the end here, Jesus

pulls the disciples aside. We're not sure.

It doesn't say whether it's the 12 or all 72.

It's a little bit doesn't say. So we're not sure.

But he pulls the disciples aside and he tells them how blessed it

is that they are seeing what the prophets and the King's longed

to see for centuries in centuries.

They longed for the moment that is happening right now.

For them, the Kingdom breaking in God is doing something new

before their very eyes. So there are three connected

ideas that I want us to see from this passage.

Firstly, that the in the Kingdom of God there is joy.

We've already talked with that a little bit.

Secondly, that this joy is rooted in knowing and being

known by God, by Jesus, and that as we are known and as we know,

we as disciples of Jesus gather and are sent out and then

gathered and sent out again. There's a rhythm to what is

happening here, so I want you to see the movement that's

happening with this. So in the Kingdom there is joy.

There is joy in hard things. For the 72 disciples, there is

joy as they get sent out of their comfort zones.

Think back to last week, the end of Luke Chapter 9, where Jesus

Luke 9 · chapter mention

is calling people to be all in, to lean in, to get

uncomfortable. This here in Luke 10 is what it

means to be all in and to not pursue comfort above all else.

And for the disciples who live this out, there is this immense

joy. They get to see God at work.

They get to see the Kingdom at hand.

They get to see Jesus. It's good to know that there is

joy and celebration on the other side of being all in.

We can be assured that it is worth it as we participate in

the life of the Kingdom, in the life of the body of Christ, as

we help others experience freedom.

We can be a light in people's darkness.

We can feed the hungry as we care for the least of these, as

we enter into one another's lives.

To be there for one another, to support one another, to

challenge one another when needed.

As we give of ourselves, as we work toward a posture of

generosity. As we love one another and love

our neighbors and even love those who would speak out

against us or curse us, there is joy in that.

And even though it costs a lot, it was worth it.

That's what we're seeing with what's happening with these

disciples. But Jesus reminds us, as I said

earlier, he don't get enamored with what you can do for the

Kingdom. Rejoice that you belong to the

King. Don't get enamored with what you

can do for the Kingdom. Rejoice that you belong to the

King, knowing and being known by Jesus.

This is what it means when we talk about our mission statement

of being rooted in Jesus. This is to know and be known.

Paul says these words in Philippians.

He says I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing

worth of knowing Christ, knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose

sake I have lost. So he's lost a whole lot of

things. He's lost so, so much, and yet

he finds it, this joyful experience.

I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in

him. I want to know Christ, yes.

I'm just going to underline all those.

I want to know Christ, yes, To know the power of His

resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like

Him in His death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection

from the dead. And we're gonna get to you in a

moment. Experience that as well as we

partake in communion, knowing and being known by Jesus.

This is what roots us. We are not simply workers in the

harvest. We are beloved children whose

names are written in heaven. And as we gather each week, we

remember this. We are gathered by Grace and we

are sent out with purpose. And that's the one final piece.

I wanna draw our attention to this rhythm of gathering and

sending. So the 72, they spend time with

Jesus beforehand. Jesus gives them the pep rally,

he says, Here's your marching orders.

Here's what I want you to know before you go out.

And they receive encouragements and instruction, and then they

are sent out to live it out. And then they come back and they

regroup and they unpack their successes and their failures and

they spend more time with Jesus. This is a mirror for our lives

and both as individuals and as the body of Christ, that there

are micro rhythms and macro rhythms, big scale rhythms of

being with Jesus and being sent out by Jesus.

The micro rhythms are these little daily moments like you

see Jesus do throughout the Scriptures where Jesus withdraws

to be still, to listen, to pray for many of us to be, to read

the scriptures, to just sit and listen to God.

And then we allow Jesus to Commission us out to our day.

Or maybe if you are someone who does that more at night to kind

of decommission us out of our day and into the next.

Then there's this macro rhythm of the gathered church, that we

are a gathered people. We gather and we worship and we

sing and we learn and we grow and we are with one another.

And then what do we do at the benediction?

We send people out. You are sent out into your

lives. This weekly rhythm is so crucial

for our souls. You know, I have lots of pastor

friends who have done like kind of experimental church plants.

And often what happens is they start to say we're only going to

gather as a church once per month.

And I, and I don't say this to like deride them.

I think I love many friends that I love and cherish deeply.

But often what they do is they say we're going to gather as,

as, as, as a church community once per month.

And then we're going to do little things throughout the

almost every time what I see happen is a year or two goes by

and like actually people want to gather every single week.

It's like there's something about that.

There's something amazing about the the rhythm of our weak and

then gathering again to be together as the body of Christ

and the methods are going to look different.

The ways in which people do it is going to look very different.

Sometimes it's in a house church, sometimes, sometimes

it's in a small group, whatever that looks like.

But there is something about the weekly rhythm of gathering.

At the centre of this rhythm of gathering and sending is the

communion table, which we will celebrate in a moment.

Communion is in some ways this rhythm in a tangible form.

We gather around Christ's table, receiving the bread and the cup,

Jesus body and blood, and we're reminded that we are known and

loved and then nourished and filled with joy.

We are sent out again into our homes, into our workplaces, our

neighborhoods, to proclaim the Kingdom of God has come near.

So with joy we gather and we go. We are known and we make him

known. This is the rhythm of the

Kingdom of God. Let me pray for us, God.

Thank you for these 72 disciples who went before us to reveal the

coming of your Kingdom. Thank you that as the Kingdom

continues to break in, you are pushing back the darkness in us,

in our world. God, would you fill us with joy

as we continue to see you at work, but more importantly, as

we know, as we are known fully and deeply by you and by your

Spirit, would you continue to gather us together as we are

sent out each week? Amen.

Amen.