Kingdom Tactics
Luke 10: 1 – 23
Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 19 January, 2003

IT’S NO good hearing what Jesus said and not doing it. James says that, if we do that, we just fool ourselves about our faith. The question we have to face is, “What should we actually do?”

We have seen Jesus at work in several settings. We have seen him walk around the edge of Galilee, telling people that God’s Kingdom has arrived and the time has come for repentance and belief. Then we saw him in the Nazareth synagogue, telling people that the days promised by the prophets had arrived, the days of liberation were here, the days of God’s favour had begun.

There is always a plan in Jesus’ ministry. Don’t imagine that he just began walking and talking, and whatever happened, happened.

No — there is a very clear plan. Jesus arrived, declaring the days of God’s favour. Then he gathered disciples to him, to expand the ministry, to proclaim thegospel in preparation for his own arrival. Then he expanded the ministry again, adding 72 others, and finally, he told his disciples to make more disciples to carry on the work throughout the whole world.

There is a pattern of expansion here. And we are called to be part of that pattern. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. What his plan was like is what his plan is like and what his plan will be like. It is a never-ending plan, a plan for all nations through all time, even to the end of the world.
That’s the plan you and I are called into.

Years ago, I introduced a kind of church mission statement. I said our goals must be to worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, to be a true community centred on Jesus Christ our Lord, and to be in Holy Spirit empowered mission wherever God calls us.

It’s still true.

Do you know why I felt it important to introduce that statement at that time? We had conflicts going on, and some people were pressuring me to be aggressive in outreach. I didn’t want us rushed into something we hadn’t properly worked out. We need to be in mission. We need to evangelise. But if we don't understand what that is all about, we will seem to evangelise, but do it for all the wrong reasons.

Our primary goal is always to bring people into a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus. That has to be a worshipping relationship. Paul calls on the Romans,

I plead with you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your rational worship.

God is good, therefore we worship.
If we evangelise wthout this primary goal in place, what are we doing? We are not really evangelising at all. We are manipulating people to agree with us. Precisely not what the gospel is about!

The secondary thing is to be a real community around Jesus.

Evangelism without community doesn’t give people anywhere to go.
As I look back over the history of this church, I see that much of our failure relates to our neglect of the community sense.
I have seen people come under conviction, but they were afraid that conversion means isolation. When a Muslim realises that Jesus is Lord, where can he go? There is no room in family or community anymore. Becoming a Christian is seen as rejection of their whole culture and society. Where do they need to come for family or community? To the church!

The same can apply to people from the more conservative and traditional churches. When they hear that the gospel means a personal choice to follow Jesus, that creates great tensions. If we are not inclusive, if we can’t fit people in somewhere, they are facing conversion in a vacuum. That is not good news!

I confess that I haven't been a good model here. That weakness in my own life impacts on the kind of church we are.

If we get worship and community roughly right, evangelism almost follows automatically.
If we “seek first the Kingdom of God”, if we are truly the Body of Christ together, we will automatically be in mission. We will produce good fruit. We will be healthy branches on the vine. One plus one is two.

In our passage, Jesus has reached a point where he could send out a broader sample of his followers.
They have been trained. They know what the message is. Now they are ready to go out and spread it.

LK 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 didn't just pluck these people out of the air. “He appointed” — those words imply that he did it deliberately, that this was a planned move. And, if it is a planned move, an act of God’s sovereignty through Jesus, then we must never take it on ourselves to go without his appointment.

But are you a believer in Jesus? Are you a true disciple? Then you have already been appointed; you have already been deliberately chosen. Didn’t Jesus say,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 As you go, then, make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And, see this! I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So the question for us is, “What will we do, to fulfill that great commission?” Some people say, “Go and evangelise,” but that's not exactly what the Lord said. He said, “Make disciples.” Being evangelists is only part of that task.

I know that discipling is more than evangelising, because I was evangelised, but not very effectively discipled. Our church was a Great Commission church. That was what you heard every day, and twice on Sundays. I was converted at an Open Air meeting, and they prayed with me, and they gave me a decision card with some verses to learn written on it, and they gave me a booklet called, “The Reason Why.” It was a simple outline of being a Christian. But then I was left to my own devices for about a year.

Three people stand out. They tried pretty hard to keep me in line. Gwen Betts, who is three years older than I am, was assistant leader of the senior Youth Group. She talked to me, and just made a point of being around when I was going through difficult times. It wasn't until years later that I really realised what that had meant to me, and I phoned her and thanked her.

Mr Reid was a thoughtful man in his mid 30s. He was going through his own crises, but he talked to me from time to time.

Bob Woods was an Anglican I worked with. He had a way of asking difficult questions and challenging me to think the answers through. He was evangelical, but not fundamentalist, and helped me to see that you could be a good Christian and not toe the party line of a fundamentalist Baptist church.

Do you see what I mean? I don't think any of those people was an evangelist. Nor were many of the other people, like Mr Traynor, Mr Bright, Peter Kilkeary, Phil George -- people who came later again.
Dickie Barton, Harold Wyatt and Lorraine Winley and several others evangelised me, but these others made me a disciple.

So it doesn't take evangelists only, to fulfil Jesus’ commission. It takes disciples who will make disciples.
The passage we read illustrates this fact.
What did Jesus send the 72 out to do?

LK 10:8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, `The kingdom of God is near you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 `Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.’

Think about what he is saying.
There are three aspects to this message.

First, attend to material needs.
When I first became a Christian, it was conventional thinking that Christians should never become involved in social or political activities. There’s still a lot of thinking along those lines among American evangelicals.

Jesus says something different: “Meet material needs.”
James says that if someone comes to you and you wish him well and pray that he will be warm and fed, but if you don't actually do anything to feed and clothe him, then you are worse than the unbelievers are!

Jesus even said that it is whether we have cared for the weak and the powerless which will divide us on the judgment day. Those who did it, did it to the Lord, and they are the sheep, bound for the green pastures. And those who didn’t do it are the goats who pleased themselves and will be cast out into the outer blackness.

So he told his disciples to seek out the sick and heal them.

Several churches in the US have set up roadside booths where someone can sit and get some shade and some lemonade, and have a Christian pray for their needs. It’s almost unbelievable how many have been converted through such a simple ministry!

In the early church, healing and deliverance were such a common part of Christian life that the heretic, Celsus, complained that so many Christians were doing it — and most of them were slaves and labourers! Celsus thought it entirely improper that any religion should let slaves and labourers minister.

Marrickville South is one of the most deprived areas in the State, according to Commonwealth Government figures. There are more single mothers than most areas, there are more unemployed, there is more drug and alcohol abuse, there’s more domestic distress, just to mention a few things.

Marrickville South is full of social needs, people who need healing of body and mind. Jesus sent us to minister, so let’s do it!

Second, declare the Kingdom of God.
In those days there were any number of healers going around. Some even used the name of Jesus together with the other names of power that they used to work their magic.
Christians need to make it clear that the ministries they perform are evidence of the Kingdom of God.

Dennis Bennett made an interesting observation. He said that there is only one Healer, so, when someone is healed through the religion of Christian Science, Christ heals, but he doesn’t get the glory — Christian Science does.

That means that, when we do the deeds of the Kingdom but don't declare the presence of the Kingdom, people don’t understand that Christ is still alive today, and can just as easily say that the ministry they received comes from some other source.

But there’s another side. When we preach the presence of the Kingdom, but don’t do the works of the Kingdom, people have no idea whether we are speaking the truth or just repeating a good story.
Imagine how these 72 people felt when they were sent out in this way. The first sick person they came to, I’m sure they said to themselves, “How can we ever do that? If we fail, it will make our message look so stupid. It would be better just to tell people that the Kingdom of God is near.”
And the maybe one said, “I feel the same. But Jesus told us to heal the sick and to proclaim the presence of the Kingdom, so we’d better do it.”
But you know what I’m saying, because you have been in exactly the same place. We don’t minister in Jesus’ Name, because we are afraid of looking like fools if we fail.

Think it over: if we fail, it is Jesus, who sent us, who ultimately bears the responsibility.

He knows who is ready and who isn’t.

And it doesn’t just have to be prayer, either. If Jesus could heal a man by putting clay on his eyes, there is no reason why we should keep ourselves from using the means available to us.

Paul told Timothy, “Take a little wine for your stomach‘s sake.” He didn't even suggest that he would pray about Timothy's stomach. Just, "Have a drop of wine when you need it."

In the end it is the ministry that counts, not the exact means used. People pick up on the love if we minister in Jesus’ name.

The late John Wimber, in an interview, remarked that he was preaching healing for a long while before he ever saw anything dramatic. And he said that he only rarely saw dramatic healings in his church. But every week, people are prayed for, and cared for, and some of them are supported in prayer for months and even years, until the breakthrough occurs, and sometimes even that is only by degrees. And some never receive any physical healing at all.

But he said that hardly anyone who has received healing ministry goes away without a changed attitude to Jesus, and many are born again and develop their own ministries, even during their sicknesses.
Healing and proclamation makes it all clear.

Finally, don’t fear confrontation.
One of my lecturers at University remarked once that many churchgoers feel that conflict is wrong. He added that conflict is very constructive if it is used rightly. Knowing Jim, I think he was probably gently confronting me about my attitude to conflict.
Jesus said, “If they refuse to hear, don’t even take any of their dust away with you. Owe them nothing! Tell them that they Kingdom came to them and they rejected it!”

When we have a salesman mentality about evangelism, when we don’t see the big picture, we will never confront, for fear that people will go away and not come back.
Jesus tells us to warn people — warn them dramatically — if they hear, but reject the message.

When the 72 returned, they were over the moon. Even demons obeyed! The ministry of aid and proclamation resulted in spiritual transformations — and that’s our aim!

Let’s get doing it!

AMEN