Wednesday, June 23, PM

Luke 10:17-24 and the Joy of Grace

Reading verses 17 to 24, Gospel of Luke chapter 10, verses 17 through 24. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for this time. I thank you once again for the blessing of being able to gather together, to have a meal together, to be able to pray together and study your Word together.

Lord, what a special blessing this is. Lord, we ask that you would help us to make the most of it, that you would give clarity to our minds and encouragement to our hearts and guidance for our lives as we consider Jesus Christ our Savior and our Sovereign.

We pray these things in His name, Amen. Okay, the Gospel of Luke, beginning in verse 17, we'll read through verse 24. Then the 70 returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.

He said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes.

Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him.

Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear and have not heard it.

The Seventy Return with Joy After Ministry and Deliverance

We're at the beginning of the chapter that Jesus sends out 70 of his followers, two by two, to go to all the places before his face, to go before him, before he arrives. And they are to go, preaching the word of the gospel and doing the works of the gospel, showing not only the truth about who Jesus is, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, as he says, but also doing those works that accompany that truth, that verify and support that truth.

And then the 70 come back. And what has captured their attention? What has been the most impressive thing to them in their journeys? Yeah, they have, in the name of Jesus, they, by the authority of Christ, they have power over the demons.

Remember that throughout Jesus' ministry, as he comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom, there were many exorcisms, many events where he's pushing back the forces of darkness, some of them very notable.

We hear by reference that Mary Magdalene was saved from seven demons. We read the story about Legion, who was possessed by a legion of demons, and so on. And we find that the enemy cannot stand before Christ.

As he pushes forward and moves forward, the demons must give way. They must flee. Even as everything else that was a judgment upon the people had to give way. As we talked about on Sunday, the list of the things that Jesus healed people from and delivered people from pertained to the curses God promised upon the unfaithful adherents to the Old Covenant.

God was keeping his word. God was keeping his word. The expression of religion that Jesus encountered is called Second Temple Judaism, because it's the second temple that was built, and then it was grotesquely worshipped as an idol.

The same sin that they had during the time of Jeremiah. The Second Temple was being beautified, and everything was dedicated to this temple, and adding more and more gold. Even if it was the last two pennies of a widow, they'll take it for the sake of beautifying the temple.

They were unfaithful to the Old Covenant, and they were suffering because of it. But Jesus comes, and he's preaching the gospel of the kingdom. And he's coming, and he's preaching deliverance. He's preaching salvation.

He's turning people's attention away from the faithless shepherds, who really weren't shepherding the people. Jesus looked at the people and said, here's sheep without a shepherd, just left to the wolves.

And so he starts calling them to himself, starts delivering them out of the the curses and the judgment, showing that he is the one who is the Savior. He's the one who not only bears their curse, but he's the one who's going to bring all the blessings of the covenant, because he's going to fulfill everything that was required of them.

He's going to do it for them. So this casting out of the demons, the 70s, well, they're like, wow, this is very impressive. They're very excited about this, probably trading stories. Yeah, here's what happened with me.

Oh, yeah, well, here's what happened with me, and so on. And then Jesus silences the room, so to speak, with his story. His story's a little bit better. No, it's a lot better. And they think that they're, you know, hey, we're big stuff, because we've had these experiences.

And Jesus says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Okay, well, there's no more stories to tell. We're done. So he just quiets the room, and he has something very important to say. He says, don't rejoice in that.

Rejoice in something else. What are we supposed to rejoice in? He says, okay, yes, I've given you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall be by any means hurt you.

You have the idea of serpents and scorpions running around on the ground, and you walking on top of them, and killing the awful things. But of course, what's the danger, if you're walking around in your sandals, stepping on snakes and scorpions?

Well, there's a good chance that one of them is going to bite you or sting you. But Jesus uses this in very illustrative form. What was the promise? What was the promise in Genesis 3 .15? I will place enmity between you and Jerusalem on the hill.

And this becomes formulaic in the rest of the scriptures about the seed of the woman crushing the head of the enemy. And this idea of trampling over serpents and scorpions reminds us that there is a conflict, that God picked a fight in Genesis 3.

He says, I will place enmity between you and her seed, he says to the serpent. So right now, all of humanity allied with Satan in the garden to conspire against God. All of humanity was in harmony with the devil and conspiracy against God.

And God says, we're not going to allow that. I'm putting enmity here. And the enmity continues. Now, Christ is winning the day. He says, I'm the one who gives you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this. Do not let this experience be what you find your joy in. Don't let this necessary, good, spiritual experience be the centerpiece of your joy. But rather, rejoice in what?

Name's written in heaven. Name's written in heaven. So he turns their attention to a citizenship, not to an experience. Spiritual victory is not to be compared to citizenship in the unshakable kingdom.

Why is this? Because whatever victory they're experiencing is entirely because of who Jesus is. Entirely because of the grace of God and the fact that their lives, their identities, are permanently, forever anchored in heaven.

He says, rejoice in that. Rejoice in that, that your names are written in heaven. Because a lot of people have had spiritual experiences. A lot of people have had mystical. A lot of people have been present for, and witnessed, and had spiritual mountaintop moments.

But these are not what is central to the Christian life. This is not what actually sustains a Christian life. And if we think that it does, then a sad thing happens with folks when they just continue to pursue, and pursue, and pursue that next spiritual experience.

Whereas there is a much better joy, the fact that our names are written in heaven. We rejoice in that citizenship of grace, that citizenship of heaven. Further, in that hour, Jesus rejoiced. So he says, here's how, okay, I know you're rejoicing in this, but here's what you're supposed to rejoice in.

And then notice what Jesus rejoices in. There's a lot of rejoicing going on in this passage. What does Jesus rejoice in? He rejoiced in the Spirit and said, I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

So he identifies his father with whom he is in communion, but he's rejoicing in the Spirit. So here in verse 21, in the first half of verse 21, we have the Trinity, right? God the Son incarnate is rejoicing in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and praying to his heavenly Father.

So here's the Trinity in the first half of this verse. He says, I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight.

So what is he rejoicing about? God sovereignly hides things and he sovereignly reveals things. For so it seemed good in your sight, he said. Now, usually when we come to passages like this in the Bible, we're falling all over ourselves apologizing for God, that he would be so insistent on doing that which pleases him that he would hide the gospel truth from certain folks and then reveal it to other folks.

And usually we're going to bat for God trying to apologize for him and saying, well, you know, if we try to see it from certain points of view so that we're not having an allergic reaction, I feel like pitching our cookies because this doesn't seem to accord with man being in charge of his own destiny.

But you notice what Jesus is doing? He's rejoicing that God does that which pleases him, and that God does things in such a way that humbles man. Isn't it a humbling thing for the wise and the prudent, the ones who are the most educated, best experienced, to have those to whom people are going, oh, you're the wise one, you're the skilled one, that God has hidden these things from Caiaphas.

He's hidden these things from the leaders of the Sadducees, the leaders of the Pharisees. These things have been hidden from the wise and the prudent, and he's revealed them to babes. He's revealed them to those whose thinking is not really well-developed, you know, like Peter, who has a hard time figuring things out.

Now, why is this glorifying to God? Because he shows that it's a matter of grace. It's a matter of grace. God reveals himself to those whom he wills, not to a class of the deserving. It entirely detonates human pride, and Jesus rejoices in this.

He rejoices in this. It's good in God's sight to do it this way, and so we're given a more, better understanding of what Jesus was saying to the 70 in the previous few verses, because they've just gone through this series of experiences where even the demons are subject to them in their names, in the name of Christ.

So, you know, it was in that day, if you were an exorcist, oh, they had a big demon problem. If you're an exorcist, it means that you knew a lot of special stuff. It means that you had some power, some secret knowledge, some ability.

You were a somebody. If you could cast out demons in that day, the seven sons of Sceva, you know, were well known for these kinds of things. Remember that in the book of Acts? So, Jesus is saying, don't rejoice in that.

You're already, you know, oh, we've suddenly joined the class of the prudent, the class of the wise. Now, we're somebody's. He's like, no, no, no, no. You rejoice that your names are written in heaven, and you didn't get there because you were somebody's.

You got there because of who God is. Right? You enter into the kingdom as a child with nothing to offer, and such as the kingdom of heaven. We're not there because we were doing God a favor and helping him out.

We're there because of his grace, because of his will, what pleases him. And that shatters human pride, and Jesus rejoices in that. Verse 22, all things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him.

So, God only reveals himself through Christ to those whom he wills, not to a class of the deserving. Now, can you know the Father without knowing the Son? No. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through me.

That's what he says. Now, with everything, whatever your perception of where the evangelical church is today in the midst of a massive split, eventually, I believe the distinguishing doctrine is going to end up being the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.

This is all run to this. Can you be saved? Can you come to the Father? Can you have your name written believing in your version of Jesus, be he not fully human or not fully divine, or whatever conception you're cool with?

That is where missiology is going to split, and that's where the church is in. That's going to be a very defining...that's the horizon, I think, of where this is going. And so, sometimes it's like, well, there's a lot of small potatoes right now, this, that, and the other.

Well, I think this is where it's all heading. This is the grace of God, and Jesus rejoices in this. And then he tells the disciples to think about how blessed they are, how favored they are. And he turned to his disciples and said, privately, blessed are the eyes which see the things you see.

For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it. All right, kids, name me some prophets and kings from the Old Testament.

Now, try to name good prophets, not like Balaam, and good kings, not like Manasseh. Okay, so good prophets and good kings. Abigail, you had your hand up. Samuel is a prophet. Okay, who else? Yes. David is both king and prophet, according to Acts chapter 2.

Elijah, very good, very good. We've got two prophets and one king. Yes. Solomon is a king. Saul? Was he good or is he bad? Yeah, he's kind of bad. Yeah, he ends up going to the witch in an indoor. Bad.

Jeremiah is a prophet. Ezekiel. Daniel, oh, that was an easy one. Yes. Elisha. Moses. Prophet, right? Okay, now, of course, so we've got two kings, a lot of prophets, but there are other good kings. You've got to learn about them.

Asa, Jehoshaphat, Josiah. So, Jesus says, many prophets and kings have desired to see, oh, 70, oh, disciples, they have desired to see what you have seen and to hear what you have heard, but they didn't get to see it.

They didn't get to hear it. What was it that these 70, who aren't the wise and prudent, they're just the infants, but their names are written in heaven, and God's using them, and they're with Jesus, and so they're seeing things and hearing things that the prophets and the kings of old had wanted to see and hear, but they couldn't.

What is it that they're seeing and hearing? They're seeing Jesus Christ. They're seeing with their own eyes, like 1 John chapter 1 talks about. They're seeing with their own eyes Jesus Christ, God the Son in human flesh, doing the things promised of in the Old Testament, proclaiming the truths of God, bringing forward everything in the scriptures in a fulfilling way, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, where all of a sudden it all comes together, and it begins to make sense, and he's saying, you know, and you think about Solomon and Peter in a debate.

It's funny, isn't it? You think about one of the disciples, maybe James versus Samuel in terms of their speaking ability as a prophet. These disciples didn't hold a candle to the saints of old, the mighty men of old, but they didn't get to see and hear what these are seeing and hearing, and Jesus is saying, you're blessed.

You are greatly blessed, and you should rejoice at the massive amount of spiritual privilege that you have that these others never had, and by the way, in the current time, he says, you're being afforded all manner of things about God's revelation and grace and the gospel and so on that these aren't, and you're not supposed to rejoice in the things that you think make you a better class than others.

You're supposed to be rejoicing in the grace of God that is being poured out upon your life. That's what he's telling them after they have this very important experience. Now, this is a very important lesson to hear for two reasons.

In context, the previous passage, verses 13 through 16, we hear Jesus declaring judgment upon cities who have seen and heard all manner of things that older cities never got to see and hear, but the folks in these towns aren't repenting of their sins and turning to Christ, and so there is great judgment upon them.

And then, past our passage, we have the lawyer or the scribe who tested him and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Right? Because I'm pretty skilled. I have a lot of knowledge, and so how do I get eternal life?

And then Jesus tells a story about grace. So, this is an important lesson in between these two passages. So, Jesus comes with authority over all the enemy. He's God the Son, the mediator, the revealer of the Father, and we learn that the grace of Christ, not the Christian experience or ability, is the true well of joy.

Our well of joy should not be Christian experience or Christian ability. The well of joy is the grace of Christ. The grace of Christ. So, I hope that is encouraging to you. Before we get to our prayer time, I would like to read a couple of letters, and I think this is a good follow-up from our previous Sunday night study.

Tim Stevenson, Obedience to Christ, and Religious Liberty in Canada

These are two letters that were written by Tim Stevenson, a pastor in Calgary, Alberta, who was arrested again for having an open-air church service in a field, and he was arrested for preaching the gospel in Calgary, Alberta.

So, the first letter is to the magistrates. He says, I write this from my jail cell in the Calgary Remand Center, and this is the place they send the rapists and the murderers. The past week, I've missed my wedding anniversary and Father's Day.

My children will remember this Father's Day as a time when they wept over the phone as I did my best to stay composed before other inmates while expressing my love for my children. Your government has wrongfully put me on the horns of a dilemma.

Either I forsake my convictions before God, or I am imprisoned for some unknown time, taken from my family and the church community I am entrusted to serve. If I choose the former, then I deny God. Thus, I'm left facing the consequences of the latter.

My conscience is captive to the word of God and shall not be moved. I realize that you think it's best to adapt or change religious practices to work within the confines of your overbearing rules. But to adapt or change what I believe God calls me to do is to deny what God has called me to do.

By the way, there's plenty of noise out there that says that the Canadian pastors who are in trouble are being unfaithful to Christ, being disobedient to the Bible, that nobody's keeping them from having church.

They're just manufacturing problems. The actual rules are things like you can't have more than 10 people at your church service, so you're required to have as many as eight or nine church services in a week if you're going to have everybody come to your facility.

You're not allowed to sing hymns, you're not allowed to take communion, you're not allowed to do baptism, so on. And so the adaptations are things like, of course we're going to church, we're just going to online church, which at best the equivalent in the scriptures is Paul writing a letter saying, I really want to be there, and it's right that I desire that fellowship with you.

And gathering together is not being online. Churches are trying to adapt to that and saying, okay, well the state has said this, so we're going to change and we're going to be in compliance. We're not going to sing, we're not going to do communion.

How are they handling baptisms? I kid you not, they've had workshops on avatar baptisms, where you set up a digital space online for your church and you have a digital pastor avatar baptize a digital candidate.

And this is well and pleasing in the sight of the state. But Tim Stevenson is saying, I don't think that that's what Jesus meant when he told us to do certain things. So he gives another example. He says, for example, I'm commanded by Jesus who died to make me his own to practice hospitality.

In fact, as a pastor, this must be a defining mark of my life. Hospitality is the practice of welcoming guests into your home, a practice forbidden by your government for six months. Okay, that's just something that maybe we don't even think about.

When forced to choose between obeying God and obeying men, the choice is clear. I've shared publicly on many occasions how our theological convictions mined from never-changing scripture come into conflict with your ever-changing laws.

AHS, that's the Alberta Health Service, continues to make public statements that they tried working with us, which is shorthand for them seeking unbending compliance through greater threats of punishment.

Not once has anyone in your government shown any interest in actually working with us. You have said that we have access to our independent judiciary for such discussions. However, our courts refrain from weighing in on the constitutionality of your health orders.

AHS lawyers continue to argue that more time is needed to produce the evidence that your office says it is using to make these restrictions. In other words, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is similar to the Bill of Rights, only in this, they actually do say these things can be suspended for proven reasons, like we're not going to allow you all to have public assembly if we're getting bombed by foreign planes.

We're going to restrict that, but we have to have actual proof. And so they've said we have the proof to lock you into your homes, you can't go to church, etc. But when it comes to the courts, they say we need more time to produce the proof.

And the courts are in an indefinite period of not meeting to resolve any of the issues. Your government can get a court order within a week. We are waiting on a hearing set for the end of September that began with lawyers in December of last year, and the dates have been pushed back numerous times.

So when the police showed up to arrest Tim Stevenson again, they kept on telling him, you know, if you don't like the rules and the laws, we have a system in place where you can change those. You can appeal and you can go to court.

And like, no we can't. You're not allowing the courts to have any hearings. The courts aren't meeting. We can't challenge it because you're not giving us the opportunity to challenge it. And one of the police officers was trying to tell him, you know, my parents go to church, they go online, you know, all this kind of thing.

And he actually said, you know, Jesus said to render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, and Tim Stevenson said the worship of the church does not belong to Caesar. That's clarifying. So Mr. Premier and elected MLAs, I am pleading with you to uphold our highest laws to which you are held to account.

Temporary public health orders do not supersede our Alberta Bill of Rights nor our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I know that I am in the minority, but these laws are designed to protect the minority.

So that's a good portion of his letter to the magistrates. I'm going to read a little bit from his letter to his church, Fairview Baptist Church in Alberta. To my brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters at Fairview Baptist Church, I love you with all my heart and long to be with you again in face-to-face fellowship.

I pray for you all each day asking God to strengthen your faith, grow your love for each other, and to make you steadfast and immovable in your calling to put Christ above all. I thank God for you as it's been reported to me that you've shown such love to my family during my imprisonment.

I thank God that your love and your courage is going forth as a testimony to the glory of Christ and the beauty of his church. I also thank God for your prayers for me. I am weak, but the Lord has strengthened me and his grace is sustaining me through each and every day.

I know that through your prayers and God's lavish grace that this time of suffering will build up his body, bring glory to himself, and sustain us in a place of joy. There's a lot more to his letter, but I'm going to encourage you to go read it for yourself.

And it's been published on the Fairview Baptist Church Alberta website, and you can read his letter. So I think it's important to note that we have to count the cost of what it means to obey Christ and what we need to be prepared for and then also to see that while many are claiming he is not being faithful to his church and to his family because he got himself arrested, he is being faithful to Christ and the good that God is accomplishing through this cannot be fully realized.

I mean this is the amount of good that God is doing. So let's pray for Tim Stevenson, for his wife, and for his eight children.