To Every Town and Place

Luke 10:1-24

Key Verse 10:1

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.”

Good morning!  Happy New Year!  One of reasons I am standing here today is, I think, because I am pretty good in pushing people.  One thing good about my pushing is that I don’t push people to commit crimes or something bad, but to be blessed by the Lord.  I am the only one who has 4 daughters in our ministry.  My fourth daughter, Pauline, just turned 2 years old on the last Christmas day and we had to send her to a preschool starting this week.  I felt sorry for her since she is still just a baby who cannot talk and cannot eat meals by herself.  I prepared her lunch box everyday, but I noticed that she did not eat her lunch well at school for the first three days.  She survived mainly eating snack and juice.  My heart was broken.  So the fourth day I visited her preschool carrying her a hot meal and sat down with her and fed her with  food I brought.  She was very happy and ate well, and took a nap on her bed beside me, and I could come back to work in peace.  Yesterday also I went to her to drop some hot soup just before her lunch time, although I had left a delicious lunch box to her in the morning, so she could eat well.  God’s love is like this.  He has compassion on every lost soul and wants to take care of them.  He cares about each soul’s well being.  He has compassion upon every little child, including every soul on our campuses.  See how happy we became since we met Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  Jesus wants to visit every lost soul so that they can also be found, healed, happy, joyful as we are.  For this, Jesus has sent out seventy-two to every town and place

Part I. Jesus sends out the seventy-two others

Read verse 1.  This verse starts with “After this”.  “After this” indicates events in the previous passage.  The last story of the previous chapter was about the cost of following Jesus.  Jesus said to another man, “Follow me.”  But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”    Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59-60).  Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.”  According to Contemporary English Version, what the man said was “I want to go with you, Lord, but first let me go back and take care of things at home."  At our surprise, Jesus said, he is not fit for service in the kingdom of God (Luke 9:61-62).  Let us think about why Jesus said so harshly as we study this passage. 

Last Sunday, through studying Acts 1, we learned how to be witnesses of Jesus.  Today we can learn how to be witnesses of Jesus practically. Let us read verse 1 together again. ‘After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.  

First, Jesus appointed seventy two others. 

Second, Jesus “Sent them”.  “Sent them” means they had to go to visit sheep’s places in order to take care of them as I met Pauline at her preschool to take care of her.  For us, “Being sent” means staying on campuses which we are pioneering in order to find some souls who can be healed, changed, and be happy through Jesus.  After a lot of fellowship with them through talking, counseling, playing sports, eating, drinking cups of coffee, or fishing and 1:1s, we can come back home to take care of our own affairs.  

When president Obama visits California, he is coming in Air Force One, accompanied by many bodyguards.  It could be very expensive journey which can cost $100,000.  But, a disciple’s journey to a campus for fishing, 1:1, other fellowship is more valuable than Mr. Obama’s journey to CA. Why?  Because it deals with one lost soul’s eternal death and eternal life.  After having fellowship with students, one soul can grow to be a source of blessing like Abraham, which is what God invested from generation to generation.  

Third, “two by two”.  Why did Jesus send them two by two?  If Jesus had sent them one by one, many of them might have been easily distracted and ended up with doing nothing or something else more comfortable such as playing video games or staying in a library all day instead of going out to find and serve one lost soul.  

Before Nathan and I helped each other to come to the Bible center at 5:30 am for daily bread meeting and prayer.  When I am late, he calls me, and when he is late, I call him to come to the Bible center immediately so that we can receive the word of God, God’s will for the day, and our spirit can be joyful like a bird flying in the sky.  With this spirit, we can visit and stay on the campus as witnesses of Jesus.  These days Max and Nathan come to the Bible center together at 5:30 am and they write daily bread testimonies and voluntarily share together each day.  When brothers do things like this, we feel that the power of devil in our generation is being destroyed.  

“Two by two” also means a husband and a wife’s working together.  One person can take care of children, while the other person goes out to the campus.  They can go out together even with their children.  “Two by two” can also mean coworking with other coworkers.  For example, “Hi shepherdess Sarah, could you take care of my children so I can go fishing to find some lost souls?  Of course. It will take about 3 hours. “No problem”.  You know that I have 5 children, right?  “No problem up to 100 children”.  Please remember that I will have to go fishing tomorrow, please take care of my 4 children”  “No, problem!”  “Two by two” also means we should be faithful to Bible studies and testimony sharing meetings.  

As you know, fishing and preaching the word of God is not a comfortable job to do in the beginning.  It is not a natural thing for us to approach someone you have never met before and began to talk about Jesus and bible study.  It is more comfortable if we take care of ourselves staying in a library all day or taking care of things at home or at work.  But, what can we do?  If you want to be blessed by being a disciple of Jesus, you do not have a choice but to go out and preach the word of God.  We can pray for God’s help when we are tired or too busy.  “Lord, I am too tired and feel like going to die soon.  But, please give me strength so that I may not miss serving you, serving lost souls today.”  Then the Lord will give us new strength sufficient to go out and meet God’s lost souls.  If we struggle like this on a daily basis, all of sudden fishing becomes very natural like eating meals daily.  Without eating this meal, we don’t feel comfortable.   

By the way, why do you want to be a disciple of Jesus?  Or why did you become a disciple of Jesus?  It is because Jesus gives his disciples a lot of fun, joy, meaning, happiness while growing in him and living for him (John 15:11).  After tasting His love and joy, we do not want to go back to our old life.  Many of those things became worthless, meaningless, some of them became even disgusting.  Not only this, Jesus provides his disciples with many future, eternal rewards.  For example, Jesus makes his disciples shine like the stars for ever and ever (Daniel 12:3).  Not only this, we experience many victories at school, at work, at home.  

After Shepherd Greg became a disciple of Jesus, then, all of sudden, his school grades jumped from C’s, D’s to A’s, B’s, although he had to spend a lot of hours such as 20 hours every week for daily fishing and 1:1s and also working many hours for his part time job at Fry’s electronics.  He graduated from CSULB in such a great victory, got married to a beautiful wife, shepherdess Jennelle and as an extra bonus recently he got promoted and got a pay increase such as 30% increase even during this economic crisis.

Part II.  Do’s & Don’ts  (2-16).

Here Jesus narrates what the harvest workers should do and should not do.

First, Read V2 “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.  Jesus teaches us that God alone is the Lord of the harvest and we should ask God to send out workers into the harvest field.  During my business trip in San Jose area, I used to visit Stanford University where I found myself too weak and powerless before many intelligent and busy students who were only interested in their school studies and personal matters.  I could not do much but pray to God to send out the harvest workers who can pioneer Stanford.  Sometime later, Msn. Andrew Hwang, a powerful servant of God, got a job at Stanford and began his house church ministry there.  There are so many souls out there and pioneering work cannot be done by one man but by working together with coworkers.  When we pray the Lord of the harvest sends out his prepared servants to his harvest field.  When we pray, the Lord can make myself first to be a good harvest worker.  So let us pray first for harvest workers at each of our pioneering campuses.

Second, V3 “Go!  I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.  First, Jesus asks us to go!  Here Jesus compares his disciples to lambs and the world to wolves.  Lambs are weak and helpless before wolves which are attacking and devouring lambs.  Jesus’ disciples were weak like us.  However, Jesus wants to send them out into the world hoping them to defeat the world.  When we are not in Jesus, we become weak, compromising, easy going, and selfish and do not want to “go”.  When we are in Jesus, because of Jesus’ Spirit, we want to “go”.  How can we remain in Jesus?  In 2010, let us come to him in early morning prayer, denying ourselves and memorize Bible verses by faith.  Then the Spirit of God will compel us to “go” to every soul, everyone, our friends, family, relatives, students on campuses, people coming out of movie theaters, everyone, and defeat the work of Satan working within others.  

Third, Read V 4b. “do not greet anyone on the road.”

This verse teaches, preaching the word of God is so valuable that it can not be distracted by civilian affairs.  Also, we should hurry without wasting any minutes and seconds.  We should focus on God’s mission.  

Fourth, read v 5-6. When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you.  According to Contemporary English Version Bible, these verses are written as follows.  5As soon as you enter a home, say, "God bless this home with peace." 6If the people living there are peace-loving, your prayer for peace will bless them. But if they are not peace-loving, your prayer will return to you.

Fifth, V7-8 These verses teach us that we do not preach to eat food.  Also, instead of moving around house to house looking for a better place, we should build up good and deep fellowship with one family.  The point is to focus on the work of God and to take care of one soul to the end.  

Six, V 9 “Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you.’  How can we heal the sick.  Jesus will heal the sick when we devote ourselves to Jesus and when we have the word of God.  Then, Bible students will be interested in the word of God, soon or later, they repent of their sins, and be healed spiritually, mentally, and physically.  

Seven, read v 10-11 “But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you.  Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’   According to Contemporary English Version Bible, verses 10-11 is as follows.

10But if the people of a town refuse to welcome you, go out into the street and say, 11"We are shaking the dust from our feet as a warning to you. And you can be sure that God's kingdom will soon be here!"   

Here we learn that our job is delivering the kingdom of God and also telling them God’s judgment (V12-16).

Why was Jesus so eager to preach the word of God?   Because the kingdom of God is very important.  It is a matter of saving one soul.  

John 6:27a reads “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life.  Similarly, learning from Jesus, Apostle Paul said “What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Philippians 3:8)”  Here “food that spoils” or “rubbish” can refer to anything except what is eternal and they become dirt, trash, grass, or dung (1Pe 1:24-25).  A nice house, a nice job, passing CPA exam, master program, Ph.D program, retirement plan, delicious food, all perish and become like grass withered or dung.  The more serious problem we can have when we spend time mainly working on these things, we can have a bad habit without recognizing our spirit being imbedded with the Spirit of the world rather than with the Spirit of God.  Soon or later, our Spirit becomes compromising, crooked and hardened that it becomes very difficult for our spirit to be restored.  But when we make a habit of devoting ourselves to God spending time and efforts for God’s kingdom work constantly, we are truly his disciples and Jesus blesses us with abundant fruits and with all our needs as well (Mt 6:33).  Then, we can be well fit to the service in the Kingdom of God.

Part III. Your names are written in heaven

Read v 17.  The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”  When they went out by faith, Jesus gave them power to drive out demons.  We also should go out by faith.  In order to submit demons in Jesus’ name, we must give our full commitment to Jesus and go out to campuses praying.  We are not going to visit the campus only for 30 minutes, but we are going to stay on the campus 2 hours, 3hours, struggling to win one soul, struggling to baptize one person with the word of God.  Then, Jesus will give us power to drive many demons out of wondering souls.  Let us read Verses 18-20.  First, Jesus saw Satan fall when disciples went out by faith and fought the good fight to obey Jesus’ direction.  Likewise, we also should go out by faith and fight the good fight praying and preaching the word of God.  Then, in the same way, Satan will fall like lightening from heaven.

One word: “Go! 

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