Luke: From Come & See to Go & Tell (10:1-12, 17-20)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

Hear the holy gospel of our Lord according to Luke.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two 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.

Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, greet no one on the road.

Whatever house you enter, first say, peace to this house.

And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him, but if not it will return to you.

And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages.

Do not go from house to house.

Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you, heal the sick, and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near you.

But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you.

Nevertheless, know this that the kingdom of God has come near.

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

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.

And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Friends, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, let us pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

Let's pray.

Lord, it is you who made the world so firm that it cannot be moved.

You are our righteous judge.

May we faithfully tell it out among our family, among our neighbors, among our community, that you, Lord Jesus, are King.

Speak to us through your word.

Illumine our hearts by your Holy Spirit.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

And by the way, did anyone receive one of these slips of paper on their way in?

I had it in mind that it would be very discreet, just slipping you these sheets of paper, but now I'm making a big deal about it.

So how about that?

But let's uh I'm just gonna go ahead and uh start distributing them.

You just hand them on back if you'd like.

It's just savor the mystery for now.

There we go.

Actually, I'm gonna take one of those there.

Many thanks.

Perfect.

Well, as uh we're passing these little slips out, I guess I want to tell you about um a habit of my dad.

A lot of you know my dad, Wes.

Uh he's a wonderful guy.

And uh when my folks come to visit, I should say it's their 35th wedding anniversary today.

So happy anniversary.

There, I'm sure they're they're tuning in online here, so we can celebrate that.

I've noticed my dad has this habit.

When my folks come to visit us, he often brings with him this uh sometimes small, sometimes not so small stack of flyers.

You know, the sort of flyers that uh that you find stuffed in your mailbox, because we don't have flyers like that here in Port Perry, right?

It's only in Ottawa they get those sort of things.

But he brings with a stack of flyers, sometimes the whole flyer, oftentimes just you know, kind of a one of the pages are kind of ripped out, something circled, you know, and the idea is he's been going through these flyers, because that's that's what he does in his spare time, and uh and he saw something that he thought, oh, that's for Creighton and Rachel.

They need to know about that, right?

And and so whether it's you know 10% off drill bits at like Canadian Tire, or you know, it's$2 off Draeno or something, it's like he knows that's something we could use.

So I want to make sure they know about it.

You know, so uh when he brings these stack of flyers, of course, it's I mean, yes, it's fuel for the recycle bin.

But he's not bringing them with a mind that, well, they need to they need more stuff to put in the recycling, of course.

He's just got a heart that says, I just want to do, I want to do something that could be helpful for Creighton and Rachel.

I saw this thing, I gotta tell them about it.

That's the heart there, right?

Because the the the seeing good news, even if it's just the good news of the drill bits are on sale or Dranos on sale, it's the thing, it's it's it's just your intuition, your inclination.

Good news has got to be shared, right?

Y'all know where I'm going with this and you're laughing already.

The point is it's it's intuitive, isn't it?

Coming and seeing results in the going and telling.

And we've been coming to see through our study in Luke.

We've been calling this come and see.

Uh we've been going through Luke, not just with an interest to learn some interesting Bible facts, but we want to come and see who Jesus is, who he reveals himself to be.

And that's been the driving question, especially these last couple of weeks.

That's the question that Jesus asks his disciples, who do you say that I am?

And that's the question that we ourselves need to wrestle with.

And if we come to see Jesus for who he reveals himself to be, the rescuer, the redeemer, the messiah, the one in whom our hopes rest, if that is something we've come to see, then that inclines us towards the going and telling, doesn't it?

It certainly does for these 72 who are being sent in our reading this morning.

Some translations, if you've got a different translation and open in front of you, might say 70.

And that's, you know, just a manuscript tradition thing.

That's not to uh it's not to undermine, I don't think it undermines the integrity of the text at all.

It doesn't change the meaning of the text, shouldn't, you know, be a question of reliability.

If you've got 70 in front of you, maybe you'll get into glory and discover it 70, and praise the Lord for that.

But uh, but I'm gonna go with 72 because I think that's the general consensus here, and it's what our translation has here.

But here are 72 folks who've come to see Jesus.

They've been journeying with Jesus through his ministry so far, and they've heard his proclamation, the kingdom is near, and they've seen the signs and wonders that accompany that, and now they themselves are being sent out on mission.

It's time for you to do the going and the telling.

That's the 72's mission.

And so, friends, if we as a parish family, as New Song, want to begin to come and see who Jesus is, we like the 72 will discover that it results in the going and telling.

It's not that Jesus' commission to the 72 is something we need to directly download without any kind of contextualization.

Jesus is giving some very particular commissions to these 72 here.

Don't go treading on serpents or scorpions this afternoon.

But we do see a pattern here of the sending.

He's given much the same commission to his twelve apostles just one chapter earlier.

If you're tracking with our reading plan, you read that earlier this week.

Here is a similar commission to now 72 to go out and proclaim the good news far and wide.

And so we can see this pattern of the going and telling and start to discover that a few things emerge, a few things that we ourselves can learn from.

If indeed the coming to see Jesus results and the going and telling, what does that going and telling look like?

I think we can say at least three things.

There's many ways we could slice this text, I think, at one point at about eight or nine points.

But I'm going to give you three things, uh, phew, that uh I think would be especially helpful for us as a parish family to see.

Going and telling is personal, it's proclamatory, and it's persevering.

Going and telling, good news, is personal, proclamatory, and persevering.

I think that's what we can see in our gospel this morning.

So if you have your Bible, if you have your order of service, open with me to Luke chapter 10, and we're going to see the personal, proclamatory, and persevering nature of the going and the telling.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

So uh, first off, a little bit of context.

Jesus is commissioning these uh 72, sending them ahead of him, two by two into every town.

That's uh, you know, meant to be uh uh and in the Old Testament, it's understood that you need two witness to establish a case.

So two by two they're going forward to establish the legitimacy of the news of the kingdom.

Jesus asks them to pray.

We're gonna come back to that.

And Jesus gives them this commission, verse 3, go your way, he says.

You know, it's time to time to get going.

Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves.

Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals, greet no one on the road.

In other words, stay on point.

Don't get distracted.

Don't don't take excess baggage with you.

You know, there's a mission to hit to accomplish here.

And whatever house you enter, first say peace to this house.

And if a son of peace is there, your peace will be upon him, but if not, it will return to you.

And and this word peace is a very loaded word, of course.

Uh the Greek is irene, but but that translates the Hebrew idea of shalom.

And it's far more than just tranquility or or just everything's really nice and comfortable.

It's this idea that things are being restored the way they're supposed to be, the way God has always intended.

So even in this small way, as you're going ahead of me and entering into these homes, when you say peace be with you, it's this blessing that God would be ordering things rightly in this house, this little microcosm of creation, right?

So right in this spot, things are being made right.

That's the idea here.

So here they're going ahead and and following through and all these things.

The first thing we want to see is this going and telling is a very personal endeavor.

Verse 7, Jesus says, Remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages.

Do not go from house to house.

Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you.

Remain in the same house, Jesus says.

Which to me seems like a really ineffective strategy.

Does that strike you as a really like if the point of this mission is go and tell as many people far and wide the good news as possible, then wouldn't you like have an itinerary?

It's like, okay, I'm gonna go tell Jonathan, didn't work out there, on to Susan, okay, didn't work out there.

You know, it's just like we're gonna load ourselves with as many houses to visit as possible in as short a time as possible so that we can get this news out urgently.

But Jesus says, don't do that.

Go to a house, stay there, plant yourself there.

Stay there for as long as it takes.

In other words, prioritize relationship.

Prioritize relationship over whatever urgency or whatever you know goals you set for yourself.

Prioritize relationship.

It's so easy to try and quantify ministry sometimes, and we lose sight of the fact that it's it's the personal relationship, the personal dynamics that are so close to God's heart because he loves us as persons.

And so Jesus gives this instruction: go and abide, go remain in that same place and eat whatever served.

He repeats that twice, which when I read that with 21st century eyes, I kind of think, you know, I guess I kind of think my experience, we've all had that experience, sort of going over to someone's home for the first time, and you know, they serve us like boiled cabbage.

Or, or, you know, I don't love stir-fry, so if, you know, I'm just putting that out there, if ever you invite us over for stir-fry.

But it's like, okay, I'm gonna go, and of course I'm not gonna tell you I don't like stir-fry.

I'm gonna I'm genuinely gonna be thankful for it.

Yeah, it's a sin of omission.

I get that.

But the idea is, you know, it sounds like Jesus said, just don't be rude.

Like, just don't come be picky about your food.

Like your 72 picky eaters, just, you know, go and accept what's served.

But Jesus is actually doing something a little bit more interesting than that.

We need to bear in mind that the 72 Jewish people he's sending out and ahead of them to announce the kingdom all abide by pretty strict, rigid food laws.

Like there are foods that they can eat and foods they're instructed not to eat.

And this is a part of God's uh old covenant program to make them visibly separate from the nations around them.

They're going to represent, they're gonna bear witness to the fact that they are uniquely God's people in eating in these particular ways, right?

And Jesus is doing something really interesting here because it's as though he's saying, you know, when you go into these towns, they're not necessarily going to be abiding by the same food laws that you're used to.

But when you do, don't freak out, right?

Enter into relationship with them on their terms.

You go into this house and and accept what they what they give you.

And Jesus is doing two things.

He's one, uh implying that he has this kind of superseding authority over the Old Testament, which is a very big deal, and maybe suggests that the Old Testament is meant to point to Jesus and not the other way around, right?

But he's also saying when you go on mission, this personal mission of going and telling, prioritize relationships and meet people on their terms, not yours.

The mission requires us to take the initiative to meet folks where they're at, not where we expect them to be.

How easy is it for the church to say, we want to see the church grow, we want to see new faces, oh, but maybe not those folks, because that's complicated, you know, that's messy.

That's exactly where Jesus is telling us to go, isn't it?

Prioritize the relationships, enter into relationships on their terms.

It's not accommodating ourselves to the point where we've completely capitulated and compromised, you know, on the gospel itself.

It's none of that.

But it is to say that here are individuals, persons that God loves.

I'm going to enter into a genuine relationship with them on their terms.

So going and telling is a very personal thing.

Meet people where they're at and stay with them there.

That's why churches, by the way, when when they grew in cities in the first century as they did, you know, you can see the pattern of ministry in Acts.

We'll get to Acts, and the pattern of ministry is lots of traveling, lots of missionary work.

You know, Paul is going all around and everywhere.

That's not really our experience of church, is it?

We've been planted here in Port Perry and here we remain.

And as time went on, the church realized that the call here is to go into these communities and is to stay in these communities as neighbors for Christ for the sake of these communities, right?

We go and we abide with our community when we say we're here in Port Perry for Port Perry.

That's what we're called to be as New Song.

We go and we stay, we abide.

We prioritize relationships with our community.

One of the um uh stories that really strikes me is um uh Rosaria Butterfield.

Do you guys know the name Rosaria Butterfield?

Oh, she's wonderful.

So um she's got an incredible conversion story, part of which is uh so so um I mean, she's a wonderful speaker, wonderful author, you know, just a just a rich, rich uh witness to the gospel.

Anyway, she was at one time a very, very uh hardened, uh militant, uh just just anti-Christian academic, you know, just just looking for an angle to you know tear at the church.

And, you know, we know the church is without fault, right?

Of course, you know, but no, of course it's not.

But but here she is, you know, she's taken aim uh at the church with her uh with her academic career, and she's published a pretty critical piece in her local paper, which gets read by the local Presbyterian pastor who calls her up and says, you know, I read your piece and I found it really thoughtful.

Would you be interested to coming over to have dinner with myself and with my family?

And, you know, partly she's thinking, well, I know what this guy's really up to, right?

And but she's also thinking, I'm working on another piece and maybe there's some fuel here for that, you know.

So, okay, so I she agrees to go over and and and has this uh supper.

And by the end of supper, she's just thinking a couple things.

She's thinking, one, this is a relatively normal family, which is not what she was expecting of a Christian family, I suppose.

And two, there was no, okay, now it's time to make a decision for Jesus moment.

There was a genuine sense of hospitality.

There was a genuine sense that this personal relationship between this pastor and his family and this and this person, not a project, but a person, was being developed.

And that was for Rosaria Butterfield the context, the occasion to start considering the claims of the gospel.

That personal relationship was the priority here.

It can make that huge difference.

Let me read just a portion of her book, uh, The Gospel Comes with a House key.

She talks about radical ordinary hospitality, the kind that she was shown that gives an occasion for the proclaiming of the good news here.

She says, engaging in radically ordinary hospitality means that we provide the time necessary to build strong relationships with people who think differently than we do, as well as build strong relationships from within the family of God.

It means that only hypocrites and cowards let their words be stronger than their relationships, making sneaky raids into culture on social media or behaving like moralizing social prigs in the neighborhood.

Radically ordinary hospitality shows this skeptical post-Christian world what authentic Christianity looks like.

Radically ordinary hospitality gives evidence of faith in Jesus' power to save.

That is the power of prioritizing the relationship, right?

So, what does this going and telling look like?

It is highly personal.

It's meeting people where they're at and staying with them for the sake of the good news.

But we need to bear in mind that the good news is not the personal relationship itself.

It is news that gives occasion for this relationship, for entering in.

The good news, pardon me, the going and telling is personal.

It is also proclamatory.

Let's look at verse 9.

Heal the sick, Jesus says.

Heal the sick in it, in the communities you're going into and the towns, and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you.

Now heal the sick here in the first half of verse 9 could be a whole sermon unto itself.

And what the ministry of healing and anointing looks like.

We could go to James chapter 5.

James 5 · chapter mention

That's a whole other sermon in itself, but I do think that this is a unique, uh a unique commission to these 72 to go and demonstrate God's sovereign reign and his sovereign rule in these specific places where things are being made as they should be.

Things are being made right.

What's broken needs is being healed.

It's bearing witness to the reality of the kingdom breaking into our broken worlds.

And so Jesus says, Heal the sick and say to them, Don't just heal them lest they miss the significance of what just entered into their lives.

Proclaim to them that the kingdom of God has come near you.

Luke is crazy about the kingdom in his gospel.

He wants us to understand the significance of the kingdom, that God's sovereign reign and rule is actually breaking into the real world that we live in, into actual history, into actual relationships.

God's way of ordering the world rightly is starting to renew and restore what's broken in the world.

God is putting the world to rights and healing what is broken.

The gospel is that proclamation.

It is news that the kingdom, God's sovereign rule, is coming near.

It is touching your life and it's touching my life.

The gospel has to be proclaimed because it's news.

And news requires words.

If you were at the advisory board retreat yesterday, you're going to be very Familiar with what I'm about to say, because it was in the Timothy Keller seminar that we watched yesterday.

But if you weren't at the advisory board retreat and you want to give me credit for this point, then I will humbly accept that.

So the gospel is news that leads to a way of life, not a way of life in and of itself.

And here's the difference.

We might, have you ever heard the phrase share the gospel, and if necessary, use words.

Have you heard that phrase?

So the intended wisdom to that phrase, I think, is let the way you live your life bear witness to the Lord that you serve, right?

Just let these two things be consonant with one another.

And that's a wise thing to say.

We ought not to live our life in a way that bears contrary witness to what we proclaim, right?

But there's a difference between a way of life and a proclamation that communicates the significance of the good news itself.

So here's an example.

Tim Keller shares a quote from C.S.

Lewis talking about tying a man's tie, right?

You can tell someone or write down for someone instructions on how to tie a tie.

If you've ever tried to follow instructions like that, you know that it's almost impossible to get it right.

But if someone shows you, here's, you know, you do this first, you do that, and you can kind of go, okay, yeah, I get that.

That's, I see that.

I can I can now do that for myself.

But, so if it's a way of life, sure, it could be lived out, it could be demonstrated.

But if we're talking about a historical event, something of profound significance that happened in our world in real history, how is it that you bear witness to that fact with your actions and not words?

So think of some significant historical moments.

Maybe it's the British North America Act that began to set up our nation.

Maybe it's D-Day and the Normandy invasion, right?

Maybe it's MLK's march in Selma, right, in the civil rights movement.

Tell me the significance of the civil rights movement, but don't use your words.

Just use your actions.

How are we going to do that?

We can't do that, right?

If we're going to bear significance to a historical reality, we need to use our words.

And that's what Jesus is saying here.

The kingdom is breaking into real history.

It's breaking into the world and it will be realized through the cross and through his resurrection.

He will take the power of death and guilt and alienation and estrangement from God and all these things that plague us as broken human beings.

Jesus will take that power onto himself and he'll put it to death on the cross so that by his resurrection he can offer us new life, an unending life.

And that's happened in history, such as the proclamation of the gospel.

Now, how can we bear witness to the significance of that with just our actions?

Of course, we'll live consonant with that, but we need to use words.

The kingdom of God has come near to you.

That's what these folks are commissioned to make known.

Okay.

Going and telling is personal.

Going and telling is proclamatory.

It uses words that lead to a way of life, but it's also persevering because we can expect rejection.

Jesus says, verses ten and twelve, but wherever, whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you.

Nevertheless know this that the kingdom of God has come near.

And he says, I tell you it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

Jesus has already said, verse 3, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves.

Imagine if you're scrolling through indeed, right, at all these job opportunities, and you see something like, You'll be sent out as sheep among wolves, you know.

It's like, maybe I'm going to keep my job at McDonald's, you know.

It's like.

But Jesus is managing expectations here.

It's like, make no mistake, this is not a constant party.

You will face rejection, you will face loss, you will face desolation.

Rejection is to be expected.

And in fact, Jesus says if they reject you, they're really rejecting me in verse 16.

We're fearful of rejection, aren't we?

I'm fearful of rejection.

That's why I so often just shrink back from the opportunity to go out and say the hard word or say the good word, because we fear rejection.

So Jesus says, wipe off your sandals, shake them off.

Where you face rejection, it's as though he's saying, shake it off, keep going.

Perseverance is the virtue that overcomes the fear of rejection.

It's not that the lack of fear of rejection is the virtue.

We will fear rejection.

The question is, will we choose to persevere for the sake of the gospel or not?

And that's the invitation to these 72.

Trust the final judgment to adjust God and persevere.

Keep going.

Keep on mission.

Go and tell and persevere.

Don't delight in being shut down, but shake it off, put your shoulders back, and keep going forward.

The going and telling is personal and it's proclamatory and it perseveres through hardship, and we do know hardship, don't we?

So I could end it right now and uh I'd be right on time.

And it would be an okay sermon, I think, but it wouldn't be a gospel sermon.

And let me tell you why it wouldn't be a gospel sermon, because so far I've told us a lot of what needs to be done, or what what at least was told here which needs to be done, which we're kind of inferring, okay, we need to do something like that.

And if I left it right here, I'd leave you with a burden, right?

I'd leave you with, here's what you need to get up to right now.

And you're kind of thinking, like, okay, I already stink at the going and telling, and now here's another thing I get to fail at, right?

It's like, here's a burden to put on your shoulders.

And that's not a gospel sermon.

The gospel here, the gospel that we discover, I think, in verse 20, relieves that burden and animates us for this mission.

What is so these 72 come back, they're so excited.

It's like we're seeing all this spiritual activity happen.

The darkness is getting pushed back.

This is so exciting, this is wonderful stuff.

And Jesus says, Don't rejoice in that stuff.

Instead, he says, What?

Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Rejoice that the good news you've gone to proclaim is first and foremost true for you.

Because before we proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near to others, we need to acknowledge it has come near to ourselves.

Right now, our Lord Jesus says to you and to me, the kingdom of God has come near.

Healing is on its wings.

And now rejoice, because Jesus has done for us what we cannot do for ourselves, and so we can rest assured our names are written in heaven when we trust in him, not in what we accomplish on his behalf, but what he has accomplished for us.

Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

Christ was supremely personal with us.

He came into our world and took up flesh and lived in our neighborhood.

Christ came to proclaim good news to us, good news to those who are impoverished, good news to those who are broken.

Jesus has come to bring healing, and Jesus has persevered through the most supreme rejection you could ever face, coming to your own and being executed with common criminals.

But he did that not as just an innocent victim of an oppressive regime, he did that willingly to take our sin and death on himself and do away with it so that we can have eternal life in him.

That is God's great love for you and for me in Christ.

And unless we are grounded, rooted, rejoicing in the good news of God's love for us, going and telling will only ever be a burden.

But if we are grounded, new song, in the reality of this good news that God has done for us in Christ what we could not do for ourselves, then this personal, proclamatory, persevering going and telling is intuitive.

It is an inclination.

We cannot help but bear witness to it.

Not because we're guilted into it, but because it's our joy.

This is our joy.

Our names are written in heaven.

Okay.

You've hung in here so far.

Hang in with me just a little bit longer.

I am going to stop talking soon.

And just give us a couple of minutes to pray and reflect, because this call to go and tell is a call for us, church, as new song.

If we come to see, we have to be those who go and tell.

And so there's maybe three sorts of people here in this message, and I'm thankful for all three of them.

One might be a Christian who endeavors to follow Jesus and wants to know what he's calling here, what Jesus is calling him or her to do.

And if if that's you, if you'd say, I'm a disciple, Lord Jesus, what can I do for you?

You've done so much for me.

What is it that you're asking me to do?

Then let me give you an invitation.

This is an invitation to consider what Jesus says about getting started with this mission.

Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.

So, one, we can acknowledge that can be our prayer.

Raise up new leaders, raise up new pastors, raise up new, you know, well-equipped lay people who can go out into communities.

That can be our prayer for sure.

But we should also acknowledge something else.

That we are the answer to this prayer.

The 72 were praying by extension for us.

Maybe not, maybe they didn't have new song in mind, but they were praying for those who will take the gospel to every corner of the earth.

And guess what?

That's that's partly us.

We're the answer to this prayer, and therefore we get to go into the fields and proclaim this good news.

And if that's our mission, then we need to wonder who's in my field that needs to hear the good news?

Who is in my field of life who is yet to grasp at the good news of Jesus for themselves?

As we're going, we proclaim this good news.

So let me invite you not to uh this isn't a decision for Christ quota, right?

This isn't a prove to yourself or to me or to God how Christian you really are.

This is an invitation to write down three names with a commitment to pray for them, that they would know what it is that the kingdom has come near.

And that's the commitment.

That's it.

That's what I'm asking us to do.

To take a couple of minutes to think of three people in our field of life who need to grasp the good news for themselves.

That's the invitation for us.

So maybe you hear that and you take that up, or maybe you hear that and you would say, you know, I'm not sure I really would consider myself a Christian.

And if that's true, thanks for hanging in there.

This is awesome.

Maybe this is an opportunity to take a couple minutes and think, what does it mean to me that the kingdom is drawing near?

If Jesus is bringing his healing, his renewal, his restoration with him, if what we're saying in the gospels is actually true in history, what significance does that mean that the kingdom is drawing near to my life right now?

Or maybe you hear all this and you're kind of just chafing, right?

It's kind of like, gosh, this is a big ask.

Why would this doesn't seem like the sort of thing I want to do?

And if that's where you're at, then I'm I'm so thankful for your honesty.

It's an opportunity, maybe for some honesty with ourselves, but maybe this is an opportunity to ask the question, where where's that coming from?

Where's that hesitancy?

Where's that chafing?

Where's that push against coming from?

What's that about?

And maybe it's an opportunity to consider the significance of what Jesus says.

Rejoice that your name is written in heaven.

So, friends, would we take just a couple of minutes and then I'll come back up, I'll close this in prayer, and we'll go on from there.

The harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few.

Let's pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.

Amen.

Wherever it is, you're going to see it every day.

And that becomes for us the invitation, the opportunity to be lifting these folks to the Lord and praying that the kingdom would come near in such a way that would vivify their lives.

There's also prayer on the back if that's that's helpful to you.

Let let's uh let's pray this prayer together.

How about that?

Almighty God, our Savior, you desire that none should perish, and you have taught us through your Son that there is great joy in heaven over every sinner who repents.

Grant that our hearts may ache for a lost and broken world.

May your Holy Spirit work through our words, deeds, and prayers, that the lost may be found and the dead made alive, and that all your redeemed may rejoice around your throne through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Let's continue in worship.

Thank you for listening today.

We worship a generous God who calls us to follow Him and giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

Newsong Church's mission and ministry is one hundred percent funded by the generous gifts of those worshiping and journeying with us.

If you'd like to offer a gift towards Newsong's ministry, please visit newsongportperry.ca slash giving for more information on how to do that.

May God bless you and keep you today and every day.