Luke 10:1-2 “After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Today's episode talks about how Jesus sent 70 others our to prepare the way for Him and He is sending us out too. It also calls us to see how we can be laborers in God's vineyard. What could we do to help spread God's Love, Peace and Light to others? Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Laborers Are Few
Luke 10:1-2 “After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
We talked about this verse in class this week because our program is all about how to become activated in the gifts of the Holy Spirit so we can go out and be God’s light to others. It is about how we can learn to use the gifts to minister to others. There are so many people hurting in this world right now. If there was ever a time when the verse above was true, it is now. There is such a great need for people who are willing to talk about God and His love for others. There are plenty of people to spread hate around. There are plenty of people in the world to judge you and to make you feel bad about yourself. However, it seems there is a shortage of people who can love people for who they are, right where they are.
Jesus had an amazing way of doing just that. When I read the Gospels and I read all about Jesus’ life and His ministry I can’t help but want to be one of His laborers. Every where He went people just felt loved. That is not to say all He said was feel good stuff. He taught some pretty tough stuff. He taught things that no-one had said before and people weren’t sure if they liked. For instance, love your neighbor but also love your enemy? Pray for those who persecute you? These were not things that were easy to hear and yet once you heard Jesus speak, you were never the same again. Jesus left people feeling better than they did before His interaction with Him. I wonder if we can say the same? Wouldn’t this be a great goal for each and every one of us?
What if we all decided that our goal with every interaction was to leave the other person, or people feeling better than they did before your interaction? Imagine what the world would look like if everyone’s goal was to bring out the best in others. I am in a coaching program called Growth Day and this is the theme for the month, How to Bring Out the Best in Others. The coaches yesterday were saying that you will not have fulfillment in life if you are just worrying about yourself. God made us as social creatures. We need to be with community, we need to be giving to other people in order to feel fulfilled. We were made this way by design. God wanted us to rely on each other, He made woman as a companion for man. He did not want us to be alone.
Jesus was sending these seventy others out to prepare the way for Him. He sent them to every town and place where He himself intended to go. In Luke 10:9 Jesus told them to “ cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.” Jesus is sending us out to prepare the way for Him as well. The world needs more Jesus in it. The world needs more love and less hate. The world needs more people who are willing to talk about God and Jesus. God needs more laborers in His vineyard. Will you be one of them? The verse in Luke says that Jesus told them to cure the sick and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you. This might seem impossible for us. We might hear that and think there is no way we could cure the sick, that is not something that is happening in this day and age. Or we might know that healings are happening today and yet we are sure they are reserved for the super holy people like priests and nuns, or people that are extra close to God.
If this is what you are thinking you are not alone. Many people, probably most people feel this way. We can get on board with the fact that the disciples were healing people because Jesus gave them that power. Jesus specifically sent them out to do these things and He would not send them out without equipping them with this power. We can believe all of this without any problem. Where the problem comes in is when we are told that we have this same calling and we have this same power. When we hear this we do not believe it. We don’t see how that is possible. Who are we and why would we be important enough to help God in this amazing calling? What did we do that would make us special enough to heal the sick, cast out demons, or spread the good news of the Gospel? Those are good questions and yet I will answer with a question. What made the disciples so special? They were all of different walks of life, some were fishermen, or task collectors, there was a doctor, and a zealot. They were all just ordinary people who didn’t really bring any extraordinary gifts to the table. So, what makes them so special? Jesus, Jesus made them extraordinary and He can do the same for us.
In Mark 16:15-18 Jesus says, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” It says right here in this verse that signs will accompany those who believe. Jesus says those who believe will cast out demons and speak a new tongue. They can drink a deadly thing and it won’t hurt them, they will lay hand on the sick and they will recover. Do you believe?
I am not asking if you believe you can do signs and wonders, I am asking if you believe in Jesus? Do you believe that the scripture is the Word of God and is truth? If so, then whether you believe in your ability to do signs and wonders or not, it is fact. Jesus said signs will accompany those who believe. In the verse above it is talking about there are not enough laborers. Will you be a laborer for Christ? I am not asking you to go out and lay hands on people as that may be way outside of your comfort zone, I know it was for me until more recently. What I am asking you to do is to look at your sphere of influence, look at your life and those who surround you. What is one thing you can do to spread the word of God, or to spread the good news of Jesus? Maybe you don’t even mention Jesus, especially if you family is particularly against Jesus right now. Maybe you just start by demonstrating His love to them, loving them like Jesus loves them. That means you accept them for who they are and love them through whatever they are going through.
I know for many of you listening, the idea that we have the power to heal others is way outside of your comfort zone. You can see how some people can maybe do it, but definitely not you and definitely not “regular” people like you and I. I am hoping this podcast will change your thinking. Not this episode, but over time I am hoping I can show you enough evidence in the Bible that you will begin to see that when God gave us the Holy Spirit, He gave us more power than we could ever imagine. He gave us a supernatural power to do signs and wonders because those glorify God. We live in a world where people need to see before they believe and signs and wonders help with that. I know it take a renewal of the mind and that takes time. I am not asking you to believe that today. Today I am asking everyone listening to ask themselves, “How can I be a laborer in God’s vineyard?” What is one thing I can do this week to spread God’s love and light to others? How can I leave people feeling better than they did before our interaction?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today? Lord, we are so grateful you gave us the Holy Spirit. We are so grateful you gave us Jesus. We are grateful you are calling us to be your laborers and we are sorry if we haven’t been doing our job of that lately. This world we live in makes it hard to talk about Jesus. It even makes it hard to spread you love, as love is not a super popular thing and people don’t really know what love really is these days. Lord, help us to grow in this area. We ask the Holy Spirit to put on our hearts how you want us to grow in this area. I ask that you reveal one way to each of us that you want us to spread your love, peace and light to others. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!