Joining With The Father Series

Joining with the Father

Series: Encountering Jesus (through the Gospel of Luke)

Brad Bailey – June 16, 2019

TEXT: Luke 10:1-9, 17-24

Intro:

Father’s Day is a unique day…in that it can both a source of inspiration and longings. I find that the very nature of a father can stir something deeply valued and never fully realized.

Our current culture may try to define life as mere survival of the fittest... but all human life bears an inescapable longing - for security and significance.

This is precisely what many see in the role of a father to call one out into their impact in the world.

Many of us have never known the full power of being blessed and called out… and commissioned … by our father’s. Throughout the diversity of backgrounds in this room… in those watching online…I’m sure there are varying degrees of support… but most of us feel some degree of limitations as well.

The simple truth is that earthly lives can only impart what they have known and what they bear.

(My father…Trying to discern my path… my father was just opening his own life more fully to Jesus… and he had the good sense to recognize he may not be ahead of me in that process… but he had the humility to encourage me towards those who did.)

As earthly fathers, we are mediators of the true father of all.

This morning… Jesus would remind us…

The Creator of everything… is your father. [1] When Jesus’ core group of dsciples saw how he lived out of a different source… they asked him to teach them how to pray… how to align their lives with the eternal all powerful Creator of everything. Jesus said this is how you should pray…and he began: “Our Father...in heaven.” He was not denouncing his earthly parents in the least. He honored them. But they were the sacred mediators of something more ultimate.

And you bear that which can bring pleasure to the Father in heaven.

This morning as we continue through the Gospel of Luke… we arrive at what has been designated the 10th chapter. And it begins…

Luke 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.

Jesus commissioning an expanding group of lives into the ministry he has come to do.

In chapter 9… he sent out the core 12 disciples with very similar instructions … he commissioned them… deputized them… and now he is appointing and commissioning these 72… and when he completes the unique sacrifice only he can provide…he will commission all who follow to go out as these have. [2]

At this point we may wonder why 72 lives in particular?

It is presumed that he chose 12 disciples to reflect the12 tribes of Israel.

In this case… he may have chosen 72… because it is the number of nations that were identified at the time… reflecting that this is the beginning of going to the whole earth. [3]

This appointing would soon be cast as the great commission for all to join.

This was the Father’s blessing being reinstated by Jesus.

To follow him…is to join the calling.

This is profound.

He is bringing the call on his life… of being sent by the Father… to every life who will receive him.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. - John 20:21

The whole of what we encounter this morning is this…

The Father is calling us to join what He is doing.

Notice they were to go to “every town and place where he was about to go.” It reflects a partnership.

Imagine what they must have felt.

This wasn’t just graduating from school…or getting a new role in their business …or being given a new assignment in the military.

This is about being called to join in the redemption of the world.

• How many may us want to live the life of the fictional superheroes of our pop culture…we don’t just watch the movies… the Avengers… Guardians of the Galaxy… or Men in Black. We would be excited to be a part of such massive ventures… not realizing that we have been appointed and commissioned to the redemption of the world.

Imagine how that changed them?

Consider how that should change us?

This appointing…commissioning… fills their sense of what life is about….and transforms the very meaning of their lives.

And in what unfolds… we discover what the Father wants us to know about the nature of the mission, the message, and the motivation.

…And Jesus describes the mission in those terms.

He continues…

Luke 10:2-4

He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3  Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4  Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.