Two Reasons to Rejoice!

[Below you'll find live stream videos of the 8:45 AM traditional and 11:00 AM modern worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio yesterday morning, as well as the prepared text for the sermon of the day. Have a good week!]





Luke 10:1-20

In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke tells us about Jesus sending seventy-two of His disciples to places Jesus is planning to visit that haven’t yet met Him. 

Jesus sends the group, He says, “like lambs among wolves,” comparing the role He’s giving them as His followers and spokespeople to being like dumb, defenseless prey–sheep–among wolves, among the fiercest of predators. 

He tells them to, in His name, heal the sick, cast out demons, share God’s peace, and tell all the “wolves” that, in Him, God’s Kingdom has come into the world. 

And, if traveling among hostile people wasn’t daunting enough, Jesus tells them not to take a purse, a bag, or even sandals. They’ll have to depend on “the kindness of strangers” who receive their Word about Jesus.

Now, be honest. If you were among those seventy-two early followers of Jesus, wouldn’t you be tempted to approach Him to ask, “Lord, could I be excused?” 

But all seventy-two went, and later “returned with joy and said, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.’ ” (Luke 10:17)  They had stepped out in faith as Christ’s representatives in a sinful world and learned that evil, the devil, and the demons of hell were no match for the power of Jesus at work in them as believers. 

Jesus exulted with them! “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” Jesus tells the seventy-two. (Luke 10:18)

Then Jesus makes two stunning statements that will occupy the rest of our time this morning. 

First, He says: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.” (Luke 10:19)

Now, this text has been misinterpreted and misunderstood by both well-meaning Christians and not-so-well-meaning through the years. 

Heretics like Joel Osteen use texts like this one to tell us that if we really believe, we'll be invincible, have good health, and enjoy wealth. According to this thinking, Jesus, Who was impoverished and crucified, would be counted as one who failed to believe in God the heavenly Father. All the apostles and every martyred, ill, or impoverished believer in Jesus over the past two thousand years would also be counted as faith failures.

“If you really believe in Jesus,” others will say, “you’ll handle this poisonous snake to prove it." In this, these either misinformed or deliberately disinforming people ignore Jesus' words to the devil, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Luke 4:12, c.f., Deuteronomy 6:16)

None of this is what Jesus is talking about at all here. In the Bible, serpents and scorpions often appear as images of evil. And, of course most Christians believe that the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve into sin was the devil himself. (Genesis 3:1-14) Instead, what Jesus is telling not just the seventy-two disciples in our lesson, but to you and me as modern-day disciples too is this: He has given us power over the devil and over evil right now.

We may find this hard to believe. There’s a lot of evil in our world. And, let’s be honest, there’s a lot of sin in each of us as well. 

I’ve been pursuing Jesus as my God and Savior for forty-five years now. But I am sometimes shocked at how easily I cave into temptation: how quick I am to judge people's eternal salvation, how easily I fall into gossip, and how thoughtlessly I slip into sinful thoughts and behaviors. 

Sin is such a part of my inborn nature and, because of it, I’m so thick-headed and hard-hearted, that it’s usually only after I've thoughtlessly sinned when I’m reading or hearing God’s Word, or about to receive the Sacrament–when, in other words, I come face to face with God and I see the chasm between His holy perfection and my unholy sinfulness–that I realize again that I am a sinner in desperate need of the grace and forgiveness God gives in Jesus. 

So, given all the evil that’s around us and all the evil that’s within us, how can Jesus possibly say that we already have the power to overcome our enemy, the devil and that the devil can’t prevent us from being part of His eternal kingdom?

If we constantly look at the world or ourselves, we will never be able to believe that Christ has given Christians power over the devil and evil. We’ll live in an enclosed feedback loop of evil that will lead us to doubt that Christ has forgiven us, that God loves us, or that we have been saved by God’s grace through Holy Spirit-powered faith in Jesus.

But, when we fix our eyes on Jesus and on God’s Word, we will see that as followers of Jesus, we do have power over evil. We have the power from Jesus to crush the devil under our feet. 

Back in the garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve had fallen into sin, God told the serpent that from Eve would come an “offspring,” Jesus. God told the serpent, “He will crush your head…” (Genesis 3:15) “

The reason the Son of God appeared,” we’re told in 1 John 3:8, “was to destroy the devil’s work.” And that’s exactly what Jesus, the Son of God, has done. 

That’s why Jesus’ last words from the cross–”It is finished”--aren’t words of defeat or despair. They’re words of triumph and hope! “I have accomplished what I set out to do,” Jesus is saying. 

He came as the sacrificial “Lamb of God, Who ho takes away the sin of the world!” John the Baptist had said of Jesus. (John 1:29) And that's what Jesus proved to be.

The preacher of Hebrews tells us: “Since the children [that is, the human race] have flesh and blood, he [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” (Hebrews 2:14-15) 

The threat that the devil constantly holds over our heads–the thing that drives us to act like gods with no accountability to God or neighbor–is the fear of death. (Which, in a pathetic attempt to elude reality, often leads us to the denial of death.) 

But through His death and resurrection, Jesus has set us free from death, along with the fear or denial of it.

Jesus has covered those who turn to Him with His power over the devil and death. 

So, in the power of Jesus’ grace, we can be sure that no matter how often the devil tries to tell us that we’re unworthy, unrighteous, or unclean, or how we may feel on any given day, or what random doubtful thoughts may cross our minds, we belong to God forever.

And when we confront the evil in us or the evil around us, we can, like the seventy-two who went among God’s enemies, meet...

the world’s skepticism with God’s kindness, 

the world’s hatred with God’s love, 

the world’s evil with the saving good news of Jesus Christ that all who believe in Jesus Christ have the forgiveness of sin, the presence of God in their lives today, and everlasting life with God!

Now, quickly, to Jesus’ second stunning statement to us today. He says: “However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20) 

Our greatest source of joy as Christians is that, through Jesus, our names are written in heaven. We belong to God forever. 

The early Church baptized whole households, certainly including children and babies, in obedience to both Jesus’ baptismal command and His command that children be brought to Him. (Luke 18:16) But whenever we’re baptized, the apostle Peter says, “baptism…saves you…by the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Peter 3:21) In Baptism, God makes a covenant with the baptized, immersing them in Jesus’ death and resurrection, making them His child and part of His Church, calling the baptized to believe in Jesus, sending the Holy Spirit to empower the baptized to believe. 

I was baptized as an infant and I’m convinced that because God made a promise on that day to be my God, He made sure that there were always Christians in my life, calling me to believe in Jesus. That included my wife and the people of our home church wielding nothing but the Gospel Word about Jesus and the water of Holy Baptism and the bread and wine of Holy Communion. 

By these means coming from outside of yourself and not from the world or yourself, God assures you of His love for you, that Jesus died and rose for you, that He has rescued you from sin, death, and the devil, and gives you saving faith, and writes your name in heaven.

And so today, friends, Jesus gives us two reasons to rejoice. 

We can rejoice that He shares the victory over evil and the evil one He has given us through His cross and resurrection. 

But even more amazingly and graciously, we can rejoice that all who turn to Jesus belong to God forever! Amen

Called Out of the Christian Ghetto

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Luke 10:1-20
As a pastor, I tend to spend most of my days in the Christian ghetto. Most of the people I see and interact with each day are Christians. 

That might seem wonderful to you. You're likely thinking, “If you knew some of the people I interact with each day, Pastor, you’d be thankful to be spending so much time with Christians.” Well, I do appreciate Christians. The Bible teaches that you and I need each other in the fellowship of Christ’s Church.

But I also think that it’s not a great thing that I spend the vast majority of my time each day with other Christians. How on earth are we going to share the good news of new life through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus with the whole world if we spend all or most of our time with just other Christians?

The Church is growing in other parts of the world, making Christianity the fastest growing religion by conversions on the planet. But the Church in our world--in North America--is shrinking, the number of people who follow Jesus for new and everlasting life is decreasing.

This is true even among people who are on church rosters. This past week, Dr. Leonard Sweet posted daunting facts on Facebook. “[Fifteen] years ago,” he wrote, “40% of church members attended four times a month. In 2018, only 10% attended four times/month, a 37% drop in worship attendance. So you could have the exact same membership church and on Sunday mornings it looks like you’ve lost over a third of your members.”

Christians might look at that data and think, “That’s a relief. At least those missing people are still members.” But there’s a difference between members and disciples. When people aren’t regularly in worship, they are at risk of growing out of touch with Christ altogether.

Acts 2:42 says of the early church, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” The early Christians worshiped together; they saw that as the first thing they needed to do in response to the free gifts of forgiveness and new life we have through Jesus. But they also gathered as often as they could just to pray and consider God’s Word together. Like a football team, they huddled before each play, coming together to get ready for whatever came next, for life outside the Christian ghetto.

Sweet’s data shows that many Christians are distancing themselves from all those annoying Christians, annoying because those other Christians are as imperfect and as in need of God’s grace in Christ as you and I are. We forget that, by the power of the Holy Spirit who comes to Christians in our baptisms, those other Christians might have things to teach us from God. We forget, in the words of Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” We need the sharpening and the formation that only happens when a fellowship of imperfect Christians is forged together in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

But the number of people who consider themselves Christians here in our country and in our own neighborhoods is also shrinking. The 2010 census shows that in Montgomery County, the percentage of our neighbors who claimed no religious affiliation was 51.5%. It seems likely to me that that number will be bigger when the 2020 census is taken, that well over half of our neighbors will have no connection to life through Jesus Christ!

This state of affairs will not change if we follow the easy course of staying in our Christian ghetto. Even pastors, ministers of Word and Sacrament, will need to spend more time outside of the Christian ghetto if we’re to make a dent in the spiritually disconnected population. 

Simple compassion for those who are in danger of facing a Christ-less eternity should motivate us. “Salvation is found in no one else [but Jesus],” God’s Word tells us, “for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Love for God and love for others should fill us with a sense of urgency about sharing the gospel with our spiritually disconnected neighbors and friends.

Jesus had this sense of urgency for the lost. He said that He had come to seek and save the lost. And He wanted people to understand that the miracles He performed and the grace He showed to the most notorious of sinners pointed to Him as God and Savior of the world, the One Who offers eternity with God as a free gift to all who believe in Him. 

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus sends out seventy-two of His disciples to prepare towns and villages for His appearance among them. 

There were, Jesus says, lots of spiritually disconnected people to reach who were like crops ready to be gathered into the kingdom of God: “The harvest is plentiful [Jesus says] but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Luke 10:2) 

Jesus says that we Christians need to pray that God will send faithful disciples among the spiritually lost so that they can encounter Jesus and His saving grace. We need to be praying for disciples to go into the harvests in Centerville, Miamisburg, Springboro, West Carrollton, Beavercreek, and all the Dayton area.

But Jesus says that we also need to be prepared to be the ones He sends into the harvest, despite the possibility of rejection and other dangers: “Go! [Jesus says] I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.” (Luke 10:3) 

Jesus goes on to say that if people do reject us, we cannot be discouraged. When you know that you belong to Jesus Christ, discouragement is not a long-term option. 

We believe, as Martin Luther writes in The Small Catechism, that as we rely on Christ, He frees us from the temptation to “false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins.”

Jesus spends much of today’s gospel lesson telling disciples intent on following His call out into the world among non-Christians about the awful consequences of our refusing to prepare others to meet Jesus and of others refusing to hear us tell them about Jesus. He says that those who spurn Him, the Author of life, will go to Hades (Luke 10:15), the place set aside for those who choose death over Jesus. 

And He tells disciples who seek to faithfully share Him with others: “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:16)

Our lesson ends with the seventy-two disciples exulting in all the lives that had been touched by God’s grace and mercy shared in the name of Jesus. Jesus shares their joy. “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:18) 

When we share Jesus’ name in love with others and they receive Jesus in faith, the powers of sin, death, and hell, all those things that keep us living in the freedom, hope, and peace that Jesus brings, those dark powers are decimated! 

But, just in case we make the mistake of thinking that the good things that God does through us when we share Jesus has anything to do with us, Jesus warns us: “do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20) 

There are people outside these doors and the doors of our homes who only have misinformation and disinformation or no information about Jesus. Jesus wants to use you and me to share the straight scoop about Him: that He is God’s one and only Son, given to us because of God’s love for everyone, Jesus Who died and rose for us and promises that all who turn from sin and turn to Him will live forever with God, starting right here and right now. 

Sharing that message is a big job! But here are four quick pointers on how to go about doing this mission to which Jesus has called us.

First: Make yourself available to share Christ with others. “Lord,” we might pray, “send workers into the harvest and make me willing to be one of them.” 

Second: Connect with the unchurched. Connect with others generally. Walk slowly through the grocery store and the neighborhood (when it’s not raining or too stinking hot). Initiate conversation with others. You don’t have to start by talking about Jesus. (People might think you were nuts if you did that anyway.) But it’s amazing how often God will open up chances for us to speak with others about Jesus when we take the time to show an interest in them. 

Third: Care about the physical needs of others. When we open our hearts to others with service in Jesus’ name, the hearts of some among those we serve will be opened to Jesus. 

Fourth: Ask God to cultivate a desire within you to tell others about Christ. I don’t know about you, but the closer I grow to Christ, the more my awareness of two things grows. First, I become more aware of the enormity of my sin. Second, I become more aware of the enormity of God's grace that covers my sin and fills me with everlasting life with God. The awareness of these two things alone should fill us with compassion for the spiritually disconnected. I always think, “If God has made me part of His kingdom, anyone can receive the gift of new life through faith in Jesus.” Anyone!

Jesus has saved us. Now Jesus sends us to reach others with the gospel...out beyond our Christian ghetto...so that Christ can reach them with the message of their salvation. As disciples, this is our calling from God. May the Holy Spirit empower you to follow that calling! Amen


[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Authority to Change Eternity

[This was shared with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, yesterday, January 31.]

[You can listen to the message by clicking here.]

Luke 4:31-44

At first, today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 4:31-44, may seem like a hodgepodge narrative of two days in Jesus’ earthly ministry. But the incidents recounted here are really linked by two strong themes.They’re important for us to remember.

The first theme is authority.

The lesson takes place in the Galilean town of Capernaum. Jesus is preaching in the synagogue and Luke tells us that, as Jesus does so, the people “were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.”

Many people try to speak with authority. In this presidential election year, we see that a lot. But when Jesus taught and preached, it was unlike anything the people had heard.

In Jesus, whether people knew it or not, they heard the voice of the One Who had once said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” That’s authority! 

Later in the passage, a man disrupted Jesus’ teaching in the synagogue. The man was filled with a demon.

We need to stop here for a second because as post-moderns, we may be skeptical about the existence of demons. I don’t share this skepticism about the existence of demonic forces in our world, though.

A few years ago, our son Philip went with his now-wife on a mission trip to Haiti. One day, Philip’s young translator took Phil on a tour of the town close to the school where they were working and later, the translator took Phil to his own home. Near the end of their visit, the translator introduced Philip to his sister. Phil shook her hand and felt that the sister was there, but not quite. Her eyes had a strange look. After they left her, the translator turned to Phil and said, “She has a demon.” Philip knew it was true.

In a culture like ours that has come to doubt the existence of Satan (which suits Satan just fine; he doesn’t want you to think he exists), the forces of hell and the demonic operate more subtly. Satan, the serpent of the garden who was described by Genesis as the most subtle or crafty of creatures, is a master marketer. He understands exactly what is most likely to drive people away from God in any given culture.

In first-century Judea, as in twenty-first century Haiti, one marketing ploy that Satan commonly used to frighten them into thinking that the devil was more powerful than God and that God couldn’t help them was (and is) demonic possession.

But even in the face of demonic possession of a human being, Jesus is authoritative. Verse 35: “‘Be quiet!’ Jesus said sternly [to the demon]. ‘Come out of him!’ Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed and said to each other, ‘What words these are! With authority [there’s that word again] and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!’”

Whatever evil afflicts you, whatever temptation dogs you today, whatever sin has overtaken you, Jesus can have conquering authority over it, if you will let Him.

Not long ago, I was talking with a man who told me that over the course of several years, there had been a steady, almost imperceptible decline in his faith life and his character. He was still in worship. But he didn’t pray very often. And he found himself toying with temptations and sins he never would have previously considered. In the process, he became more cynical, more critical of others, less patient, more selfish.

The horrifying thing is that he was enjoying it. His increasing slavery to sin felt like freedom to him. This is how sin and the devil can mess up our thinking!

Fortunately, the man still did occasionally feel prompted to pray. (Remember that our prayers are always responses to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We wouldn't know or feel drawn to pray otherwise!)

One day he was praying. In the middle of giving God a laundry list of things he wanted in his life, he stopped cold.

“I was walking into my living room,” he told me, “when suddenly, there were tears in my eyes. I felt totally convicted by God for how I was living. I called out to God, ‘I don’t want to be far from You, Lord. Help me to be a man of God again!’”

That man gave me permission to tell his story so that you will know that there are more subtle ways of becoming demon-possessed than the way recounted in today’s Gospel lesson.

The God we know in Jesus Christ will never force Himself on you; God only goes where He’s invited.

And when almost imperceptibly, we walk away from God--neglecting worship, the study of God’s Word, prayer, receiving the sacraments, or caring for or serving our neighbor--we create vacancies in our souls that become footholds for sin, darkness, and the devil.

When that man came to God in Jesus’ name, even though he prayed selfishly, he was actually inviting Jesus back into his life. For the first time in a while, this man felt truly free of the sins that were destroying his character, his relationships, his self-esteem. Jesus has the authority to do this in all of our lives.

Jesus speaks the Word of God with authority. Jesus also speaks with authority to defeat Satan. But that’s not the end of the authority theme in our lesson.

Starting at verse 38, Jesus enters the home of Simon, the apostle Jesus would rename Peter. There, he found that Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a fever.

This was no demonic invasion. This was physical illness. Illness is another manifestation of evil in our fallen world, but most physical illnesses don’t come to us because, like the man I just mentioned, we’ve sinned. People get the mumps or chickenpox or cancer usually simply because illness happens in a fallen world. Physical illness is a consequence of living in an imperfect world. One day, those who entrust their lives to Jesus Christ will live in an eternity beyond the reach of illness. But this isn’t heaven.

Yet in Jesus, heaven comes to this world, as it did that day in Simon’s house. Verse 38: “...Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.”

In His own authority, Jesus signified the power He ultimately will wield over our common human enemies--sin, death, darkness--by restoring the health of Simon’s mother-in-law.

Jesus still conquers illness today.

Great doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals know this.

In hospitals here in Dayton, I have experienced more than in any other place I’ve served, doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists who join patients, families, and me in praying before surgical procedures.

When competent, trained medical professionals also pray in Christ’s name for their patients, those patients can great confidence that they are in God’s hands as He guides human hands.

After healing Simon’s mother-in-law, Luke says that Jesus brought healing and deliverance to many more in Capernaum.

Early the next day, He went off to a quiet place. Crowds found him and tried to convince Him to stay. But in verse 43, Jesus says: “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

And this is the second important theme of today’s Gospel lesson. The preaching of Jesus, the exorcisms He performed, the healing He brought, and everything Jesus did that day in Capernaum and everything He did while on earth, were really about one thing: To bring the good news of new and everlasting life to all who dare to turn from sin and believe in Him. Every miraculous thing Jesus ever did was meant to be a sign pointing us to Him as the way, the truth, and the life, to Jesus as God the Son and Savior.Every person Jesus healed, brought back from the dead, or from whom he exorcised demons, had one thing in common. They all eventually died to life on this earth. Jesus exercised His authority in these ways not because life could ever be made perfect in this imperfect world, but to point to the good news that can change the person who believes for all eternity!

No doubt many in Capernaum wanted Jesus to stay because they saw Him as the cure for their earthly afflictions. We human beings are always more impressed by flashy, easy to observe, earthly things. You’ll remember that Jesus once sent His disciples out to replicate His ministry--to heal, to cast out demons, to preach and teach. They came back to Jesus excited about the authoritative signs that they’d performed in Jesus’ name. But Jesus told them, “...do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” [Luke 10:20] These are good words for us to remember!

In this life, nothing will ever be perfect.

Our prayers will often seem to go unanswered.

Evil will often seem to win.

We may be tempted in the face of these realities to wonder whether God is there or if He is there, whether He cares.

But every time, in the name of Jesus, sin is forgiven, relationships are mended, healing is granted, God uses us to feed hungry people or helps us tell a friend about Jesus, whenever God empowers us to fight for justice for our neighbors, and whenever lives are made eternally new through faith in Christ, we are given signs that, beyond this life, those made righteous by faith in Christ will live a resurrected life with God and in the company of the saints and that all that hurts us--that hurts God Who stands with us--will be gone for eternity.

In the meantime, may we live under the authority of Christ Who saves us from sin and death and may we share the good news that all who turn from sin and surrender to Christ can have this same everlasting life with God! Amen

Be Careful What You Pray For

[This is another one of the sermons I prepared for worship this morning at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. It and the second one I prepared sort of got blended in the delivery.]

Luke 10:1-20
There’s an old saying: “Be careful what you pray for. You just might get it.”

This past Tuesday, during my morning prayer time, I stopped talking to God for a time and asked instead for God to speak to me in the silence.

“Is there something that You want me to pray about, Lord?” Often, when I pray like that, all I get is silence and that’s OK because just being able to know and speak with God by way of Jesus Christ is wonderful enough for any believer in Christ.

But, this last Tuesday, sitting in silence, a thought crossed my mind, a thought I believe came from God: It had been a while since I had directly and personally shared the Gospel--the good news that God’s passion for all people is so great that He sent His own Son Jesus, so that all who turn from sin and follow Him, who believe in Him, won’t remain in the state of separation from God in which all human beings are born, but will be made right with God and have life with God forever--[It had been a while since I’d shared that good news] with a spiritually disconnected person.

I’d shared the gospel with the people of Saint Matthew, of course.

I’d shared it indirectly with all sorts of people on my blog and my Facebook and Twitter pages.

And I love doing both of those things.

But, I believe that it was God Who reminded me and convicted me in the silence, that it had been awhile since I had lovingly and compassionately looked into the eyes of a person not in relationship with Jesus and shared the Gospel with them.

So, I prayed, “Lord, help me to share the good news with some spiritually disconnected person soon.”

God loves all people. He wants all people to know how much He loves them. He wants all people to have the relationship with Him that only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. He wants all people to know about Jesus’ death and resurrection so that believing in Him, they can have life with God, now and forever. And ordinary people like you and me--and like the seventy Jesus sent out on a mission in today's Gospel lesson--are the "jars of clay" He uses to carry the message of His love to a broken and needy world.

Well, Tuesday passed. Wednesday passed. There were conversations with a number of folks as I connected by phone or in person. But all of those happened basically, within the Christian ghetto. The Fourth of July was spent with mostly family members. I had almost forgotten my prayer when I went for physical therapy for this bicep tendonitis the doctor’s been treating lately.

I arrived at the treatment center with a bottle of water in one hand and a book in the other. I always take a book with me, just in case there’s some delay or a lull during the sessions.

My name was called and I went back for my treatments. The discussion with the therapists started predictably. “How have you been lately?” we asked each other. One of them told me about tackling and conquering a major tidying project, clearing the way for some redecorating.

Then, about twenty minutes into the treatment, one of the therapists, noticing my book, asked, “What are you reading?” “Oh, an Agatha Christie novel,” I said, Murder on the Orient Express. “I thought it was a mystery,” she said. “That’s a little surprising. Usually, I’ve noticed you’ve brought religious books with you.” She was right. But this was what I’d taken that day.

Now, I hadn’t picked up that Agatha Christie paperback with the idea that, “This book will allow me to share the Gospel with someone at the physical therapy center today.” But bizarrely, the fact that, at the last second, that was the book I picked up, led to a conversation about stories, how Jesus told stories, and how this past week at the IMPACT youth gathering, we heard true stories of young people who, after being rejected by their peers and even their own parents, even after violating the will of God, they found the grace, forgiveness, and love God offers to us through Jesus Christ. They learned that we are saved not by what we know, not by obeying religious rules, and not by being good enough, but solely by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, this conversation unfolded over a period of about a half-hour and it wasn’t as one-sided as that summary makes it sound. But this very natural conversation gave me the chance to share the Gospel with a spiritually-disconnected person.

It was only after I got back to my office at home and was praying that I realized, “God just answered that prayer I prayed last Tuesday!”

Somehow, we in the Church have managed to make the simple act of sharing the most important truth anyone can know--the truth that God loves us, sent Jesus to save us from ourselves, and that we can receive that salvation simply by turning from our sinful, self-driven ways and receiving the gift of faith in Jesus Christ--[we’ve turned all that] into something complicated, forbidding, the area of “experts.” But, truly, every Christian has the ability to tell others about the Savior Who has come to save us from hell and to give us heaven with God! Every Christian!

In today’s Gospel lesson from Luke, Jesus calls seventy of His followers to travel two-by-two to cities He intends to visit.

Their message is simple: “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” That makes sense; Jesus is the King of kings Who came to bring the kingdom of God into our world. All who believe in Him are part of that eternal kingdom.

Now, it’s important to remember that earlier in Jesus’ ministry, He sent out the twelve, the apostles, on a similar mission. That’s easy for us to understand. They had become the experts, trained in the world’s most exclusive seminary, three years on the road with Jesus.

But here, in today’s lesson, Jesus sends out non-experts, laypeople, into the world to do the same thing He had earlier sent the apostles to do. They were to share the Good News of the kingdom to which all people can belong by God’s grace through faith in Christ. Our lesson goes on to tell us that the seventy pursued that mission, even casting out demons in Jesus’ Name!

Now, there are three things I want to point out as being  important in this lesson.

First: God wants people to be saved from sin and death. That's why Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. It’s why He sent the seventy in our lesson and it’s why He sends you and me into the world with a great commission.

So, pray that God will send witnesses  for the crucified and risen Jesus into the world. In verse 2, Jesus says, "The harvest truly is great [the numbers of people in need of the Gospel are enormous], but the laborers [the numbers of people willing to share the Gospel with others] are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”

Out of gratitude for the grace of God given to them in Jesus and out of love for others who need Jesus as much as they do, every Christian should make it her or his business to pray that workers--everyday Christians like you and me--will be prompted and empowered to share the Gospel with their spiritually disconnected friends.

But a word of warning: Be careful what you pray for. It’s often been my experience that if we are passionate enough about something to pray about it, God will often answer our prayers by saying, “OK. YOU be the answer to that prayer.”

As you pray for workers to go into the harvest, be prepared to be one of those workers who carries the Good News into the world, into Logan, into your family, into the place where you work or go to school!

Second: Expect opposition when you share the Gospel. Among those who cried for Jesus’ crucifixion, I’m convinced, were people who knew or at least strongly suspected that He was God in the flesh. They hoped that by killing Jesus, they could overthrow the power of God and believe the lie that Satan has been trying to feed the human race since the beginning, the lie that we can (or should be) like God.

Jesus warns us that the opposition that killed Him will also seek to keep us quiet as we strive to share His Good News. In verse 3 of our lesson, Jesus says, “I send you out as lambs among wolves.”

Jesus never promises that if we follow Him, everyone will love us, we’ll have lots of money, and we will never suffer. Elsewhere, Jesus says: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

Like Stephen, the first Christian to be killed for following and sharing Jesus with others, when we face opposition to the Gospel that we share with others, we can join Jesus in the prayer He offered from the cross: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do.”

When, by faith, you know you will rise with Jesus, you can take risks to share God’s love, justice, and hope into the world that you would otherwise be terrified to share. You can face life and death knowing that none of God’s promises will ever let go of those who entrust their lives and their eternities to Jesus Christ alone!

Finally: Share your faith in Christ out of simple gratitude for His grace. Grace, you know, is God’s charity for sinners. Christians know that we deserve condemnation and death for our sin. But because of God’s grace and our trust in Christ, the One Who brings God’s grace to us, we’re set free from death.

Romans 8:1 says: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

And Ephesians 2:8 reminds us: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God...”

Life with God is a gift you and I could never earn nor deserve. There is no greater gift than life with God! 

And it has been bought for us by Christ through the shedding of His blood, His suffering, and His death on a cross!

Of course, Christ’s death and resurrection hadn’t yet happened when Jesus sent the seventy out on their mission. So, maybe they can be excused for the triumphalism they display, getting more excited about being able to exorcise demons from people in Jesus’ Name than they were about the gift of everlasting life with God that Christ gives to all who believe in Him.

But all too often, Christians give Jesus a bad name by looking down their noses on others, acting as though they’re superior because they’re Christians. We must never fall into this trap!

No Christian can ever claim to be superior to any other human being, even if those other human beings are Osama bin-Laden or Adolf Hitler.

We followers of Jesus know that we are undeserving sinners saved only by the wonderful grace God gives through Jesus. That’s why someone has said, “Evangelism--sharing the Good News of Jesus--is nothing more than one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread.”

Jesus is the bread of life Who gave Himself so that all who turn to Him will live.

May it always be our prayer that there will  be workers for Christ willing to share His Good News with the spiritually disconnected in our world and in our community.

But watch out when you pray that way: Jesus may appoint you to be the answer to that prayer! Amen