Luke 10:1-9 March 9, 2008
Lighthouses of Prayer
Proclaim the Kingdom
Review of Lighthouses of Prayer
On the first Sunday of the year, I introduced the idea of lighthouses of prayer. It comes from Luke chapter 10 where Jesus sends out the 72 Disciples to go into the villages around the country.
This is his commission: "When you enter a house, first say, ’Peace to this house.’ If the head of the house loves peace, your peace will rest on that house; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, … Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ’The kingdom of God has come near to you.’
From this passage we receive a way to impact our neighbours for Jesus:
The Luke 10:1-9 The Model
5-6 - Bless Your Neighbours
“When you enter a house, first say, ’Peace to this house.”
7-8 Develop relationships with your neighbours.
“Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you”
9a - Pray for their needs
“Heal the sick who are there”
9b – Proclaim the Kingdom
“…and tell them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
This is my final message in this series on being a lighthouse of prayer, or “Prayer Evangelism,” and I’m going to begin it with a confession.
All through the series, I’ve listed this point as “Share the Gospel,” or even “Preach the Gospel.” When I’ve presented the Lighthouses model before, I’ve talked about doing this by using different ways to describe to our friends and neighbours how Jesus died to pay the price for the things that we have done wrong in our lives, and how when we accept his death and resurrection, that he reunites us with God, and we can live in right relationship with God forever. We evangelicals often call this message, “the simple Gospel.”
This message is true and right, but it is not what Jesus tells his disciples to say as they are sent out! The message that Jesus sends the disciples out with includes personal salvation, but it is much bigger than that. He tells them to say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
This message is not just about personal salvation – it is about worldwide regime change!
Often time we think of a kingdom as a geographical location – a nation like Nepal; which is still a kingdom. But when the Bible speaks of the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, the writers are talking more about the King who is in charge rather than the real estate that he is in charge of.
The people that the disciples went out to were wanting an regime change – they were tired of Gentile foreigners controlling the Promise Land – they were tired of the Jewish leaders appeasing Rome and oppressing the people. They were hoping for a return to the time when God himself was king of Israel. They were looking forward to the promise that Jesus quotes in Luke 4 when he reads from Isaiah in the Synagogue,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” Luke 4:18-19 p. 727
Remember that Jesus sent the disciples out into the villages that he himself would be visiting soon. They are to prepare the way for Jesus. It is this subversive act of coming into villages and whispering to the people, “the revolution is beginning, all your hopes are just on the doorstep…the kingdom of God is near!” The fact that they are preparing the way for Jesus, tells the people that it is Jesus that is going to bring in this new creation where God is king. Jesus is the one.
The kingdom of God is Jesus’ main message – the majority of the time that Jesus’ teaching is described, it is written that he taught about the Kingdom of God, or spoke about the good news of the Kingdom of God. Most of his Parables begin with the phrase, “the Kingdom of God is like…”
What does the kingdom look like?
The disciples could say to the people “the kingdom has come near you, because it had. It had come near in the way that they had been behaving. The kingdom is a kingdom of blessing, of friendship with God and his people, and it is a kingdom of healing – physical, emotional, spiritual and even cosmic or environmental healing.
How does Jesus usher in the Kingdom?
Jesus demonstrates the Kingdom to us – a kingdom of Grace – acceptance of sinners – call to live the way they were meant to
A Kingdom where the king serves his subjects – washing feet – the ultimate service/sacrifice of the cross
An invitation to enter the kingdom – to live under God’s good reign
Fast forward 2000 years… How do we proclaim the Kingdom of God to our neighbours?
After we have blessed them, befriended them, and prayed for them, the simple words, ““The kingdom of God has come near to you.” don’t mean much to 2008 Torontonians the way they would be full of meaning to 1st century Jews.
Brian McLaren, in his book, The Secret Message of Jesus, says that we, in our culture, don’t get the concept of Kingdom very well. We don’t have very many functioning kings or queens in our world today. So, he makes some suggestions of words that might speak to what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of the kingdom and when he told us to prays saying “Your kingdom come, your will be done.
The Dream of God – the way God wants things to be
The Revolution of God – the movement that takes down the totalitarian system of lust, pride, power, prejudice, consumerism & greed. And replaces it with a system of true freedom and shalom.
The Mission of God – his plan, his medical mission, his “Mission Impossible”
The Party of God – in three stories in Luke Jesus says, “the kingdom of God is like a party.”
The Network of God – community, ecosystem…
The Dance of God -
All of these words might help us in understanding what Jesus is getting at when he talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, they help us “get” the Kingdom. They might help our neighbours “get” the Kingdom.
I believe that since we are made in God’s image, we all have his dream within us. For some, it has been buried deep under all sorts of things – greed, unbelief, violence, hatred…. But it is there, and when we hear the Dream of God, there is a yes inside you – even if it is a faint “yes,” it is a yes all the same. Some people fight against the yes, some people have been saying yes all their life, but they think that church is the last place were they would find the dream coming true! It is our Job to live the dream, and then to tell our neighbours that they can live it too.
Implicit in saying that God’s dream is coming true, the revolution has begun, the mission is coming, the Party has started, the network is up and running, the Dance has begun, is an invitation to the dance, the party, to be God’s friend on Facebook…
But we know that in order to come to the party, we have some reconciling to do with the host.
The Kingdom is at hand – you can walk into it now – but you have to be reconciled to the King – quit your rebellion
You have to be reconciled to the dreamer and quit the nightmare
You have to be reconciled to the party’s host – maybe you came dressed for a masquerade when it is a family gathering – take the mask off and get real. Maybe you have been getting drunk and trashing the place – you need to be reconciled.
More needs to be done than just saying sorry and saying that you won’t do it again – you’ve made a mess and someone has to pay for it. This is where Jesus comes and covers the mess we have made by dying on the cross to pay for the damage.
He doesn’t stop there – he gives us the Holy Spirit to live within us to keep us instep with the dream, to show us how to connect into the network, to tech us the celebration of the party, to give us the rhythm of the dance…
How do we communicate this to our neighbours?
Live it
Read the New Testament: it is the kingdom manifesto – let it infuse you with the values and ways of the kingdom – read the secret message & other books – be sure they are full of grace
Listen to your neighbours, and to God to find the metaphor that connects
Is there someone here that wants to join the kingdom? - Pray
