INTRODUCTION – From Floating, to Following, to Going
We’ve been in this Get Going series for a few weeks now — and it’s been about movement.
Week one, we talked about “Faith that Floats.” We looked at Peter stepping out of the boat — trusting Jesus when the waves were high and the wind was strong. That message reminded us that faith isn’t about staying where it’s safe; it’s about trusting Jesus enough to step out where He’s calling.
Then last week, we talked about “Faith that Follows.” We looked at how following Jesus means more than believing in Him — it means walking behind Him, trusting His lead even when it doesn’t make sense.
And today, we’re taking the next step — from floating to following… to going.
Because faith that floats learns to trust.
Faith that follows learns to obey.
But faith that goes — changes the world.
ILLUSTRATION:
You’ve probably heard the story of the little boy walking along the beach, tossing stranded starfish back into the ocean. A man says, “You can’t save them all — there are miles of beach!” The boy tosses another and says, “Maybe not… but I made a difference for that one.”
That’s what Faith that Goes looks like — not saving everyone, but being faithful to go after those God puts in our path.”
In our passage today, Jesus sends out seventy-two of His followers to carry His message into towns and villages. They weren’t superstars. They weren’t famous preachers or trained evangelists. They were everyday people who had spent time with Jesus — and now, He was sending them to do what He had been doing.
Read Luke 10:1-4
1) Go Forth Together (Luke 10:1–4)
Luke tells us that Jesus “sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places He planned to visit.”
I love that detail — He sent them in pairs.
That means Faith is never meant to me a solo mission
He knew that faith grows stronger in community.
When we look at the early disciples, most of them had spent a season watching Jesus work. They saw Him heal the sick, raise the dead, and calm storms with a word. But now Jesus was saying, “Alright — it’s your turn. You’ve watched long enough. Now go live this out.”
That’s where we are too.
There are seasons where we need to sit, listen, and learn — but those seasons are meant to prepare us for the going.
And Jesus sends them together.
You could almost imagine two of them walking down the dusty road, maybe nervous, maybe excited — but they weren’t alone.
Illustration – The Marketplace Missionaries of Alaska
You know, when Jesus sent out the seventy-two in Luke 10, He sent them in pairs — not as celebrities or experts, but as ordinary people with a mission and a message.
And that same story is unfolding right now across western Alaska.
There’s a ministry called What I Have, part of the Alaska Student Partnership, that’s training and sending out young adults — teachers, nurses, mechanics, and community workers — to go live in the villages. They call them marketplace missionaries.
At their Hub 1 in Bethel, there are thirty-nine missionaries who have said, “I’ll go.” They’ve chosen to step out of comfort and into calling — to use what they already have to make Jesus known where life is rugged and remote.
They go in pairs, just like the seventy-two. They move into the villages, work in the schools, serve families, and quietly become the heartbeat of hope in places many have never heard the name of Jesus spoken with love. (Show video). That video was from last year, Here is a picture of the 39 who have said, ‘I’ll go,’ and how they have started to chisel down the 100 unreached villages in Alaska.”
Right now, Missionary Paul Burkhart — who helped start this movement — is in that new training building in Bethel, pouring into the next group of leaders. During the crisis after the recent typhoon, those same missionaries were crucial in getting emergency help to the villages along the Yukon-Kuskokwim region. When roads and rivers were cut off, they were the ones already there — helping disperse supplies, praying with families, and reminding people that God hadn’t forgotten them.
Some of these missionaries are fresh out of college. They’re not preaching from pulpits; they’re living the message — teaching, mentoring, and sharing meals around kitchen tables.
That’s what Faith That Goes looks like in Alaska today. It’s ordinary believers stepping into extraordinary places, believing that God’s Kingdom belongs not just in church buildings, but in classrooms, homes, and hearts.
That’s how the church is meant to work. We’re better together.
Think about it — God could have chosen to accomplish His mission through angels, through miracles, or through divine signs in the sky. But instead, He chose people. And not just individuals — He chose a community of believers, walking side by side, to carry His hope into a broken world.
When Jesus sends us, He doesn’t say “Good luck out there.”
He says, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” (John 20:21)
That’s personal. It’s relational. It’s shared.
Read Luke 10:5-7
2) POINT 2: Go with Peace (Luke 10:5–7)
When the disciples reached a town, Jesus told them to say, “Peace be to this house.”
That’s interesting — He didn’t tell them to argue, to debate, or to convince people to change.
He told them to bring peace.
When we carry the message of Jesus, we are not salespeople trying to close a deal. We’re ambassadors bringing a blessing.
Too often, believers feel pressure — “What if they don’t listen?” “What if they reject me?” — but Jesus already prepared His disciples for that.
He said, “If they receive you, stay and bless them. If not, move on.”
That’s freeing, isn’t it?
Our job is obedience.
God’s job is outcome.
We can’t control how others respond, but we can control whether or not we go.
That’s what Paul meant when he said:
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they’ve never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?” (Romans 10:13–14)
It’s not our responsibility to make people believe. It’s our responsibility to share — in peace, with love, and in truth.
Illustration – The Elliots, the Saints, and the Power of Peace
There’s a story from missionary history that still moves me every time I tell it.
In the 1950s, a young missionary named Jim Elliot and four friends felt called by God to reach an isolated people group in Ecuador — the Huaorani tribe, who had never heard about Jesus. They spent months learning the language, flying over the jungle in a little yellow plane, dropping gifts, and praying that God would open the door.
When they finally landed on a small sandbar to meet the tribe face-to-face, things went terribly wrong. All five missionaries — including pilot Nate Saint — were speared to death. Jim was just 28 years old.
To the world, it looked like failure. Newspapers called it reckless. But what happened next would become one of the most powerful testimonies of peace and forgiveness the church has ever seen.
Jim’s wife, Elisabeth Elliot, and Nate’s sister, Rachel Saint, refused to respond with bitterness. Instead, they went back into that same jungle — not with weapons, but with love. They lived among the Huaorani, learned their language, and began to share about Jesus, the Prince of Peace. Over time, many in that tribe — including some of the very men who had killed Jim and Nate — accepted Christ.
One of those men was named Mincaye (pronounced min-kie-yay). Years later, Nate Saint’s son, Steve Saint, returned to visit the tribe as an adult. Imagine that — the son of the man who had been speared to death, flying back to the very people who had killed his father.
When Mincaye heard Steve was coming, he knew what he needed to do. He asked to meet Steve alone — at the very spot where his father had been killed. He brought his spear with him.
Steve later said he never forgot that moment. Mincaye looked him in the eye and told him exactly what had happened that day. Then Mincaye said,
“Your father was a holy man. I have regretted what I did every day since. It is our custom that when I murder an innocent man, the son has the right to kill me.”
He held out his spear to Steve.
Steve said, “I wouldn’t actually spear somebody… but in my heart, I truly wanted to.”
And yet, in that moment, he chose forgiveness. He walked in peace.
Because of that choice, Mincaye gave his life to Christ. The man who once killed a missionary became a missionary himself — traveling with Steve to tell the world what the love and forgiveness of Jesus can do .
When Jesus said in Luke 10 to “speak peace over the house,” that’s exactly what this looks like. They didn’t argue their way in; they loved their way in. They went with peace — and peace turned murderers into brothers.
So when Jesus says “Go,” He’s not saying “Go win arguments.” He’s saying, “Go bring peace.”
Read Luke 10:8-15
3) Go With Healing (Luke 10:8–15)
In these verses, Jesus tells them to “heal the sick and tell them, ‘The Kingdom of God is near you now.’”
The mission of Jesus is always about wholeness — healing hearts, restoring lives, reconciling people back to God.
Now, that healing can be physical, emotional, or spiritual — but it always points people toward Jesus.
Sometimes the most powerful healing happens when we simply show up for someone.
When we bring comfort to the hurting.
When we pray for the broken.
When we meet a need that someone else ignored.
Illustration – Healing Beyond the Physical
When we talk about healing, we often think of the miraculous — the blind seeing, the lame walking, the sick made well.
And yes, God still does that. But sometimes the healing He brings isn’t what we expect.
Years ago, Assemblies of God missionary Mark Buntain was serving in Calcutta, India, helping establish what would become Calcutta Mercy Hospital.
He met a man ravaged by leprosy — broken, disfigured, and cast out by his community.
After surgery and care, the man’s body began to heal. But what changed him most wasn’t the medicine; it was the love he felt from the people who treated him like a human being again.
When Buntain asked why he came back to the mission to volunteer, the man said,
“Because Jesus not only healed my body — He healed my shame. ”
That’s the kind of healing Jesus sends us to bring — healing that touches both the body and the soul.
And that same kind of healing is still happening right here in Alaska.
One of the young marketplace missionaries serving through the Alaska Student Partnership shared about a student in her western-village classroom who stopped coming to school.
Weeks later, when he finally came back, she asked what was wrong. He said his family was falling apart, and he didn’t see a reason to try anymore.
She didn’t give a sermon — she simply asked if she could pray. He nodded. She prayed.
Months later, he told her, “When you prayed, I felt like I could breathe again.”
He didn’t start attending church right away. He didn’t have a sudden miracle. But he came back to school, day after day. And every time she saw him, she saw a little more life in his eyes.
Sometimes healing looks like a hospital in Calcutta.
Sometimes it looks like a quiet prayer in a village classroom.
Either way, it’s Jesus doing what only He can do — restoring people, one heart at a time.
You see, this has always been God’s mission — not just to heal bodies, but to heal hearts, homes, and whole communities.
That’s why in Isaiah 61, the prophet says:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed.”
That’s not just a verse about Jesus — that’s a calling for every one of us who carries His Spirit.
When Jesus sends us out, He isn’t sending us to impress people with miracles — He’s sending us to embody mercy.
To comfort the brokenhearted.
To be His hands and His presence in the places that are hurting most.
That’s what it means to go with healing.
But here’s the thing — not everyone will respond. Jesus warned them of that.
He said there would be towns that would reject them. And when that happens, He said to shake the dust off your feet and move on.
That’s not bitterness. That’s release.
It means don’t let rejection stop your obedience.
So many believers start out excited to serve — but one rejection, one disappointment, and they pull back.
Jesus says, “Keep going. Keep loving. Keep healing. Keep sowing.”
You don’t have to fix every person — just be faithful to the mission.
Read Luke 10:16-20
4) Go With Confidence (Luke 10:16–20)
When the disciples returned, they were amazed — they said, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use Your name!”
And Jesus said something incredible:
“I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” (Luke 10:18)
It reminds me of Aslan in Chronicles of Narnia says: “Don’t cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch. I was there when it was written.” Jesus was there when Satan fell—He saw it!
In other words, “Don’t forget who’s already won this thing.”
When you go in Jesus’ name, you don’t go in weakness — you go with authority.
You’re not stepping into the unknown alone — you’re stepping into territory where the victory is already settled.
That doesn’t mean life will be easy. But it does mean the outcome has already been decided.
Illustration:
“The other day I sent Josiah to tell Judah a message. He walked in and just started barking orders—no ‘Dad said…’ So Judah ignored him. I called Josiah back and said, ‘Try again—tell him Dad said.’ He went back, spoke in my authority, and Judah listened. When we pray and speak in Jesus’ name, we’re not relying on our voice—we’re carrying His authority.”
Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28:18–19)
We can go with confidence because our King already reigns.
That means when you’re sharing your faith, when you’re praying with your neighbor, when you’re loving the unlovable — you’re pushing back darkness.
You’re declaring the victory of Jesus in the everyday.
CLOSING CHALLENGE – WHO IS GOD SENDING YOU TO?
The call to go isn’t just for missionaries overseas—sometimes it is to our own backyard.
It’s for parents raising kids in faith.
It’s for coworkers bringing light into their job sites.
It’s for students showing kindness in school halls.
It’s for every one of us who says, “Jesus, You’re my Lord.”
The harvest is still ready — and the workers are still few.
But you and I? We’re the answer to that prayer.
This week, I want to challenge you to partner with someone — a friend, a spouse, a ministry teammate — and ask: “Who can we go to together?”
It could be a family down the road who’s struggling.
It could be someone in town who just needs hope.
It could be as simple as sitting with someone who’s alone.
That’s where the mission starts.
Not in a pulpit, not on a platform — but in the ordinary, daily moments where you bring the peace and presence of Jesus.
Illustration – The Pilot Who Trusts the Sky
There’s a missionary pilot who serves the western Alaska villages — flying mail, medicine, and missionaries into places that don’t even have roads.
He once said,
“Every time I take off, I pray, ‘Lord, You’ve flown this route before me.’”
He told about a time when a sudden storm rolled in so fast that he couldn’t see the runway anymore — total whiteout. He said, “In that moment, everything in me wanted to turn back, but the instruments said, ‘You’re still on course.’”
So he kept trusting what he couldn’t see.
A few minutes later, he broke through the clouds, and the landing strip was right in front of him.
Then he said something I’ll never forget:
“I’ve learned to fly by faith, not by sight — because Jesus has already flown ahead of me.”
That’s what Faith That Goes looks like.
You may not always see what’s ahead. You may face storms, or rejection, or silence.
But you can go with confidence — because the same Jesus who sent out the seventy-two is still sending His people today.
He’s still guiding.
He’s still healing.
He’s still flying ahead of you.
So go — not in fear, but in faith.
Go in peace.
Go with healing.
And go with confidence, knowing the victory is already won .
ALTAR INVITATION
Today, maybe God’s been stirring something in your heart —
a name, a place, a calling you’ve been resisting.
Maybe you’ve been in the “floating” stage — learning to trust.
Or maybe you’ve been “following” — growing in obedience.
But now, God’s saying, “It’s time to go.”
If that’s you, I want to invite you to come forward — not just as a symbolic act, but as a step of obedience.
Let this be the moment where you say, “Here am I, Lord — send me.”
Come pray. Come surrender. Come ask for courage.
Because the same Jesus who sent the seventy-two is still sending His people today. (Pause briefly and look around the room.)
ALTAR TRANSITION SONG SETUP
Cue: Take a breath before walking back to the stage to pick up guitar.
BENEDICTION
May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord show you His favor and give you His peace.
And as you go — may you go with faith that floats, faith that follows, and faith that goes forth together.
Amen.
**Pastors if you are using my message, drop a comment. I would love to pray for you and your church as you are preaching it.
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i Nancy Shero, “Rachel and Steve Saint,” Nancy Shero Stories (October 20, 2016), https://nancysherostories.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/rachel-and-steve-saint/.
Additional context drawn from The Elisabeth Elliot Foundation archives; End of the Spear (2005, testimony of Steve Saint and Mincaye); and Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (Tyndale House Publishers, 1957).
ii Assemblies of God Heritage Magazine, “Calcutta Mercy: The Legacy of Mark and Huldah Buntain,” Vol. 31, No. 2 (2011).
iii Alaska Student Partnership, Field Update – Western Alaska Marketplace Missionaries (internal report, 2023).
iv Arctic Mission Aviation, pilot interview, 2019.
