If you would take your Bibles and turn with me to Luke chapter 10. If you’re using the pew Bibles you can find that on page 867. We’re looking at this central section of Luke’s gospel and we’re taking several weeks to ask what we can learn about evangelism from this part of Jesus’ ministry. And last week we talked about the need to get out of our Christian bubbles and to interact meaningfully with unbelievers who are all around us all the time.
And this week we are going to focus on what is the foundation of effective evangelism. So let me ask you, “What do you think is the most important element of effective evangelism?” It’s not the method that you use – and there are several good ones, whether it’s the Roman Road or Evangelism Explosion – there’s value in being trained in those. Come on Wednesday nights. There is an Evangelism Explosion training during our Midweek and we’d love to have you come and join us for that. But that’s not the most important thing. It’s also not about having a good apologetic argument to make, and there are several that we could make – whether it’s the cosmological argument or the teleological argument or the ontological argument. It would be good to know what those words mean if you are going to use that. I can’t say that I am completely familiar but it sounds sort of impressive. But that won’t do it either! And it’s not even primarily about the person with the Gospel message or about their persuasiveness and appeal.
Now those things may, there may be a place for all of those things at some time or the other, but none of those things comes first. What comes first is the instrumental work of God’s grace. And so when the Bible says things like, “It is the Lord who goes before you,” and, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last,” and “Apart from Me you can do nothing,” those verses apply to evangelism as much as they do to every other part of the Christian life. And so before we ever engage with an unbeliever or say a word about Christ, the only way that the Gospel will change hearts and save sinners is by God being at work before, during and after anything we say or do. “Far from inhibiting evangelism,” according to J.I. Packer, “Far from inhibiting evangelism, faith in the sovereignty of God’s government and grace is the only thing that can sustain it. For it is the only thing that can give us the resilience that we need if we are to evangelize boldly and persistently.” And so the prior and the ongoing work of God’s grace in the spread of the Gospel is the only thing that can give us the motivation, the boldness, the confidence to do what God calls us to do.
So I pray that we’ll see God’s prior work of grace as we read this passage from Luke chapter 10.
We’ll look at this passage according to two lines. We’ll see the laborers in the harvest and then the Lord of the harvest. The laborers in the harvest and the Lord of the harvest. Before we read from Luke chapter 10, let’s pray and ask for God’s blessing.
Our Father, we pray for Your grace tonight, that Your grace would come right now into our hearts and our minds, that You would give us understanding of Your Word. Help us to hear what You have to say to us. Give us ears to hear. Would You help us to understand Your Word. By Your Holy Spirit, help us to see Christ in His glory, His grace, His beauty, His majesty. And would You use Your Word to prepare us and to send us out into Your kingdom to make disciples as You have commanded us to do. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 1:
“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 moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be 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 in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to 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.
Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.’
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.’
In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’
Then turning to the disciples he said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.’”
Amen. The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
The Laborers in the Harvest
Well the main point of this passage is pretty clear. It is this. It’s that the kingdom of God and the message about Jesus will advance in spite of opposition and unbelief. So in the forefront of this passage, it is a message of success, of fruitfulness, of victory, yet there is in the background, there is a note of struggle. The dominant teaching, the dominant teaching of this passage is positive and encouraging and yet we often live as if it’s the other way around. Sometimes you’ll hear where someone takes a well-known song and they play it in the minor key instead of playing it in the major key. I recently heard a cover of “Hey Jude” that was played in the minor key. Someone said that,”Instead of taking a sad song and making it better, it took a sad song and made it sadder.” The minor key usually does that. It makes a song sound more somber, more heavy than we’re used to hearing it played.
Well if you played this passage in the minor key, then it’s going to be all about trouble and uncertainty and rejection. But what happens when we live like that? What happens if we pay attention more to what’s hard and difficult and then we ignore the joy and the blessings that come from the kingdom of God? Well unfortunately, nothing happens. Unfortunately, fear causes us to disobey Christ’s command in this passage. And I’m afraid that what happens with us is that we oftentimes focus more on the laborers in the harvest than we do on the Lord of the harvest. Because the laborers of the harvest, on their own, are not much. And what we see in this passage, some of the things about the laborers in the harvest, in the first place, the laborers are few. You notice that we’re told in these verses, verse 1, that Jesus sends out seventy-two. He sends them out two by two to go ahead of Him. Now some manuscripts and translations are divided on whether it’s seventy or seventy-two. There was a difference in the copying of those manuscripts. And yet the message is the same that we get from this passage – the laborers are few.
If you remember back in chapter 9, something very similar to this happened where Jesus sent out His twelve disciples to do these very same things. So the number has grown from chapter 9 to chapter 10 and it’s still a small number. It’s a small number in comparison to the crowds that have been following Jesus. Remember how many were there when Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes. We’re told that there were 5,000 men that were there on that occasion. Now if we took into account the women and the children who would have also been there, then the number of the crowd around Jesus at that time could have been 10,000 people or more. So seventy-two is a very small number in comparison to the crowd that had been following Jesus at that time. The laborers are few.
And Jesus says that He sends them out “as lambs in the midst of wolves,” in verse 3. Now I don’t think that we need an illustration to tell us what Jesus means when He says that. We know, very obviously, that wolves are fierce animals and that lambs are fragile and vulnerable. We know that. But what’s surprising is that Jesus says that He is sending the lambs out into the midst of the wolves. That’s not the way things usually happen, is it? The wolves come to the lambs. The wolves come to the sheep to attack the flock. That’s why they need a good shepherd to protect and to keep them. But here, what’s going on? Jesus is sending out the sheep, the lambs, into the midst of the wolves. Now that doesn’t sound like a very good scenario at all, does it? And so there are few, and they’re vulnerable.
And then Jesus tells them to travel light. He says in verse 4, “carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals.” He’s saying to them that the cares of this world are not to be their top priority, that their security and their comfort are not at the top of the list. But trust in God is. Trusting God to know their needs and to provide for them is what’s most important for them as He sends them out. But that’s not always easy, is it? It’s not easy to live day to day and to live with that sort of uncertainty. And then on top of that, He’s saying that they can expect to receive, to face opposition and rejection as they go out. He says in verse 10 and 11, “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.’” If you look at verse 16, Jesus says, “The one who rejects you, rejects Me.” They’re going to face rejection. Here is Jesus, He’s sending them out, He’s sending them out with a message of peace; He’s giving them a ministry to heal the sick and do mighty works. And yet what happens? There are still going to be people to resist them. There are still going to be those that refuse them, that refuse to repent, who turn them away. And that would be hard. It might even be scary.
Think back several chapters to Luke chapter 4 when Jesus’ own hometown, the people in Nazareth, rejected Him. What did they do? They took Him to the top of a hill, to the brow of a hill, so that they could throw Him down a cliff. Things could escalate quickly. There is no indication that the labor and the harvest is going to be light or easy work. And Jesus says He is not calling the wise and the understanding to this work. He says in verse 21, “I thank You, Father, that You have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding and revealed them to little children.”
The Lord of the Harvest
What’s going on here with the laborers in the harvest? Jesus’ disciples are limited in what they can do and the strength of the opposition is strong. And yet none of those things, none of those things dictates what happens for the laborers in the harvest. None of it can halt their mission. But we oftentimes act like that’s the case, don’t we? We say things like, “We are a minority in the culture and we don’t know our Bible or our theology well enough.” And, “How could we ever convince someone else to trust in Jesus?” And we certainly don’t want to be thought of as strange or put ourselves at the risk of rejection. And yet are those good enough excuses for not laboring in the harvest? What happens when the disciples, when these laborers actually go out into the harvest? We’re told in verse 17 that they came back with joy, “they returned with joy,” and they are the ones who are blessed. Jesus says to them, verse 23, “Blessed are the eyes of those who see what you see.” There is joy and there is blessing for the laborers in the harvest and their joy and their blessing do not come from anything within themselves or from their avoiding the rejection of those around them. No, their joy and their blessing come from the Lord of the harvest. You see, the laborers do not go out on their own. And their success, it does not depend on anything of their own doing. No, they are sent out by Jesus into His harvest with His message and with His authority.
You’ve probably heard it before – the prayer of Augustine in his confessions where he says to God, “Give what You command, and command what You will.” What’s he saying there? He’s saying that it is his desire to do whatever God commands him to do, but he absolutely needs God to enable him to be obedient to that command. And a similar thing is happening here in these verses. Jesus commands these disciples to go out as laborers into the harvest but it is Jesus who provides the fruit from that harvest. And don’t miss this crucial yet simple point in this passage. Notice what the disciples call Jesus multiple times in this passage. It is that Jesus is “Lord.” Verse 1 says that, “The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of Him.” In verse 17 when they came back, they returned with joy and they said, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” You see, the disciples recognized that it is Jesus’ authority that is sending them out.
Or we could say this another way. They recognize that their going is a matter of obedience to Jesus. I wonder if we think about that and Jesus’ own call and commission to us to go and to make disciples. Do we think about that as a matter of obedience to Him as our Lord, as the One who has all authority? Jesus is the One who appointed them. Jesus is the One who sent them out. That word for “sent” is the Greek word “apesteilen.” It’s the same word from which we get the word “apostle.” It means that they are sent out as messengers, as representatives of Jesus and they are going out ahead of Him, they are going out in His name. So this is not an optional package in their discipleship. This is a core commitment for them to hear and to respond to this command of Jesus. And ultimately it’s not even about them anyway. It’s about representing Jesus. It’s about making Jesus known. It’s about obeying His command. They have been sent by Jesus and they have been sent by Jesus to speak His message. He has told them what they are to say. It’s a message of peace. It’s a message about the kingdom of God. In verse 5 He says, “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’” Verse 9, “Heal the sick. Say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” Now that does not sound like a very complicated message, does it?
And yet it’s a radical message because what they are saying is that the reign of God had come to them in Jesus Christ and that He had come to be their King and to establish His peace and to make all things right. Jesus is at the center of the message of the kingdom of God and every knee is to bow to Him. That’s the reason that some people, some towns will not receive them – because they don’t like the message. It’s not a problem with the messengers. The messengers are just called to be faithful to the message that was given to them by Jesus. They’re just called to be faithful to Jesus as their Lord and to go in obedience to Him, regardless of what sort of reception they receive. In the end, the way that they are received isn’t up to them anyway. Jesus Himself will see to that part as well because Jesus is Lord of the harvest. Jesus is the One who gives success to their mission. And again, this is a matter of authority. It’s a matter of Jesus’ authority. Jesus gives them the authority to do the mighty works in His name. Verse 19, “I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over the power of the enemy.” These are the demonstrations of the kingdom blessings that had come in Christ and it comes from Jesus’ authority.
And then Jesus also has the authority to make known the truths of the kingdom and to enable the people to receive the good news. Look at what it says in verse 22. “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” Now this is one of the greatest mysteries, if not the great mystery in God’s plan of salvation. It is human responsibility and divine sovereignty. That everyone who hears the good news about Jesus and the kingdom of God is accountable for their response to that good news. We are all responsible for either receiving it or not. But no one will respond and receive the good news of salvation unless God first gives them ears to hear and faith to believe. See, it’s up to God. It’s up to God to change people’s hearts. We can’t do that. We can’t change anyone. Only God can do that. And when He does, when God has chosen someone for salvation, when their name is written in heaven, then that person will believe and be saved. That person will respond in faith to the good news about Jesus.
The harvest is out there. That’s what Jesus says plainly in this passage. He doesn’t say to pray for the harvest. No, the harvest is ready. The harvest, He says, in fact in verse 2, “is plentiful.” And Jesus’ disciples get to participate in bringing in that harvest. Jesus says not to pray for the harvest. He says to “pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” That can be a sneaky, scary prayer, can’t it? Because if we are making that prayer, if our prayer is for laborers to be sent out into the harvest, then that means that our heart’s desire is for laborers to be sent out into the harvest and what we’re going to find is that our hearts are being moved that we would be those very laborers going out into the harvest. What we see in this passage is that the Lord of the harvest commands what He wills. He commands that we would go out into His harvest. But He also gives what He commands and He provides fruit from that labor in the harvest.
Now isn’t that an encouragement? Shouldn’t that be an encouragement for us to participate in the mission of the kingdom of God, for us to build relationships with unbelievers, and to tell them the good news about Jesus? Because God is already at work in the lives of those whom Christ came to save. In fact, if you notice in these verses that it is the work of the Triune God that is drawing people to salvation – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus the Son in verse 21 prays. It says that He “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding and revealed them to little children.’” Father, Son and Holy Spirit are at work before we ever say one word about Jesus Christ.
And God will provide fruit from that labor. Yes, there will be those who do not want to hear it, but that’s not a reflection on the messenger. It has more to do with the message itself and with the One who is the focus of that message. It has more to do with Jesus Himself. But who knows. Only God knows that He might use our faithfulness to tell others about Christ as a part of the process of bringing someone to faith in Jesus. We might not get to see it. We may have to wipe the dust off our feet and keep on going, so to speak, but God moves in mysterious ways.
I read a story this week about a man named Luke Short. Luke Short was an old man living in the middle of the 1700s in America. He was close to 100 years old. As he was sitting in his fields, thinking about his long life, he reflected on a sermon that he had heard in his boyhood from the Puritan, John Flavel. He reflected on his life, he remembered this sermon, he thought about his own mortality, the penalty of sin and the hope of the Gospel, and he turned in faith to Christ. He was converted to faith in Christ 85 years after the sermon that he had heard long ago. Who knows how God will work?
And yet there are also the ways in which God can work right now. And there may be those in your life who you will be able to notice how God is at work right now in their lives and they have an openness to the Gospel message. They have a desire to talk and to be honest and ask questions. And we need to stay there and we need to be patient with them and to pray for them and to pray for ourselves and to look for ways to point them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. What a blessing that would be. What a blessing that is – that God would allow us to participate in such a joyful occasion, the salvation of the lost.
I think about a conversation I had several years ago with Bill Whitwer. Some of you remember Bill. I’ve mentioned him before. He was a pastor here many years ago and planted several churches around the area. Bill passed away not that long ago. But one day, Bill caught David Felker and me in the stairwell by the church offices. And we talked for probably 45 minutes to an hour in the stairwell. It seemed like we should pull up a chair and sit down or something, but again, it was in the stairwell! But I remember one thing Bill said then. He said that whenever he found that his joy and zeal, when he had lost some of his joy and zeal in the Christian life, that what he realized he needed to do was to refocus and to recommit himself to the practice of evangelism.
I think there’s two things in that. One, is that sharing the Gospel with someone else makes us verbalize the good news. We are speaking to someone else about God’s grace, His love, His forgiveness, His blessings. And remember what Jerry Bridges says – that we need to be preaching the Gospel to ourselves every day. What better way to do that than to share it with someone else? And as we share the good news about Christ, it nurtures our own joy because we are reflecting and thinking about the good news. But the other thing is that when God, by His grace and His goodness, uses us to draw someone else to faith in Christ, what could be more joyous than that? What could be more of a reason to celebrate and rejoice? Well there is one thing. There is one thing more joyful than that and it’s this – it’s what Jesus tells us in this passage. It’s that we ourselves have a saving relationship with Jesus. He says in verse 20, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you. But rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
And you see, we can be sitting across from someone and telling them about God’s forgiveness, His acceptance, His love, His blessings, that Jesus died for them, that He died to secure, He rose to secure eternal blessings with God forever; it’s to be received simply by faith. We can say all of that and know that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to change their hearts. Nothing that we can do to make them believe; absolutely nothing. Only God can do it and God has to do it. And yet as we realize that, as we think about that, what does that make us realize? It makes us realize that God did that for me. I didn’t know Him. I didn’t want Him. I didn’t deserve Him, but He wanted me. And He made me willing and able to believe He saved me. “Why was I made to hear Thy voice and enter while there’s room? When thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come.” Why was I made to hear Thy voice? Why? It’s all of God’s grace. He did that for me. He did that for you. What can we do but respond with wonder and with tears and with joy.
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Will you pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest? And will you be one of those laborers? Because there is joy to be found in hearing and obeying the call of Jesus into His harvest.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, we make that our prayer tonight – that You would send laborers into Your harvest. As we go back to our homes tonight, as we go back to our workplaces, our schools, our neighborhoods this week, we ask that You would give us courage and boldness and love for You and for our neighbors that we would go out as laborers into the harvest, that we would be witnesses of the good news of Christ, of His life and death and resurrection for us and for our salvation. And would You grant Your blessing to our labors, to our efforts, in Christ’s name and for You glory. And we pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.