[0:00] Thank you.
[0:30] Good morning.
[0:42] Welcome. It's good to have some folk on holiday with us as well. And some special guests. I'll introduce them in a moment or two. But we do welcome you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
[0:54] The psalmist in Psalm 95 says, Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving.
[1:08] And extol him with music and song. We have so much to thank God for. Every day is a gift from him. Every blessing comes from his hand. But of course the greatest and most wonderful reason for thanking God is for his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[1:24] And we're going to sing his praise as we stand and sing a hymn that's going to come on the screen behind me. My heart is filled with thankfulness to him. Let's stand and sing.
[1:45] Let's continue giving thanks to God as we pray together. Let us all pray. Our most glorious God in heaven, our Father, we thank you and bless you again that we can be here on this Sunday morning.
[1:59] We thank you that you are the God who gives so many good gifts. In fact, oh Lord, everything that we have, everything that we are, has come from your hand. It's come from your grace, your love, your overflowing generosity to us.
[2:14] And Lord, what makes that generosity and that goodness to us all the more amazing is that, oh Lord, we don't deserve any of it. Oh Lord, far from it, we deserve rather, oh Lord, your judgment and your anger.
[2:27] For Lord, again, we come and confess that we are sinful people, foolish people, wicked people at times, evil. Lord, if we look into our hearts, we know it's only so true. How we judge one another.
[2:39] How we judge you. And, oh Lord, how we act and speak, Lord, in such ways. We know that this is not what you created us for. We know, oh Lord, that this is all because of sin.
[2:51] Sin in our hearts and sin in the world. We know, oh Lord, that your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came to save us from sin. Oh, we're so grateful that this morning that Jesus came to rescue us, to bring forgiveness, to bring life, to bring reconciliation, that we might be restored into that relationship with you, the God who made us and loves us and provides for us.
[3:14] We thank you that, oh Lord, you, Jesus, were willing to go even to the cross to accomplish that. You were willing to pay that ultimate price, that great sacrifice, that you should in our place be punished, in our place that you should receive, Lord, the judgment that belongs to us.
[3:33] And, oh Lord, we thank you that you did that at the cross. We thank you that you went there gladly and willingly for our sake and for our salvation. But we thank you that, Lord Jesus, we know that when we meet on the first day of the week, when we meet on a Sunday, then we are reminding ourselves that you are no longer dead, but risen from the dead, alive, that you've triumphed over sin and death and hell, that you are the one, oh Lord, who lives ever to walk beside us, ever for us to follow, ever for us to enjoy a fellowship with.
[4:06] And, oh Lord, we thank you that's not just here when we meet on a Sunday in church, but, Lord, day by day, moment by moment, night and day, in fact, Lord, you never leave us nor forsake us, but you are with us.
[4:19] We pray especially that this morning we might know that sense of your presence with us by your Holy Spirit. We pray that, Lord, you would meet with us in such a way that our hearts may overflow and be filled with thankfulness.
[4:33] Lord, so often our hearts are filled with grumbling and moaning, and our minds and thoughts are filled with all the things of the day and the past week and the week ahead. But, Lord, we pray that you would clear, as it were, the clouds from our hearts and minds, that we might see the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that Son of righteousness with healing in his wings, that we might come and worship and adore.
[4:55] And more than that, O Lord, we might know you speaking with us and ministering to us and helping us. For, Lord, we are here because we confess not only our gratitude for all that you've done, but we confess our great need of you day by day.
[5:09] So, Lord, be with us now. Forgive us our sins. Send your Holy Spirit amongst us. And bless your people and bring glory and honor to your Son, we ask.
[5:20] For we ask it all in the name of Jesus. Amen. We're from our Bibles now. And we're in Luke and chapter 10.
[5:32] So if you're with us regularly on a Sunday, we've been going through the Gospel of Luke, and we're up to chapter 10. And we're going to read the first 20 verses.
[5:45] The first 20 verses of Luke and chapter 10. And we'll think about them a bit later, too. So if you've got one of the church Bibles, the red ones, that's page 1041.
[5:57] 1041. And if you've got your own Bible, then it's Luke chapter 10, beginning at verse 1. 1041.
[6:10] 1141. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
[6:27] Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go. I'm sending you out like lambs among wolves. Do not take a purse or bag or sandals.
[6:40] Do not greet anyone on the road. When you enter a house, first say, peace to this house. Someone who promotes peace is there. Your peace will rest on them. If not, it will return to you.
[6:53] Stay there, eating and drinking, whatever they give you. For the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you.
[7:05] Heal those who are ill and tell them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, Even the dust of your town will be wiped from our feet as a warning to you.
[7:22] Yet be sure of this. The kingdom of God has come near you. I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
[7:33] Woe to you, Chorazin. Woe to you, Bethsaida. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.
[7:46] But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No. You will go down to Hades.
[7:59] Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. Whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me. The 72 returned with joy and said, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.
[8:15] He replied, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, to overcome all the power of the enemy.
[8:25] Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And may the Lord help us as we consider and seek to apply his word to our lives in a little while.
[8:43] Will it? Will it be? Will it be? Before we leave. In the hologram, hold on.
[9:03] Hear those armed swath, Jesus sings. Hear those берings all around. Tend the time it's all around, Jesus saves.
[9:16] Hail the news till every land, Like the spirits that cross will raise, On the days of all's brother, Jesus saves.
[9:33] Please do sit down, and please turn with me to Luke and chapter 10, and to that reading that we heard just a little while ago.
[9:56] Luke and chapter 10, verses 1 to 20. I wonder, were you ever a Boy Scout, or a guide, or a brownie, or a cub?
[10:15] That's it. Perhaps you were. I think a lot of us were at one point or another. If you were, then you'll remember still a little bit in your mind of what it was like every week.
[10:28] You would have to recite certain words at the very beginning of your activities for the evening. And they would be something along the lines of this.
[10:41] I think it's changed a bit now, but this is what I remember having to say. On my honor, I promise that I will do my best to do my duty to God and to the Queen, to help other people to keep the Scout law.
[10:56] Scouts and guides are still going. I think, I'm not sure if they're all one now, or it's just all boy and girl Scouts. I'm not sure exactly, but it's all changed a bit. But there's still many millions of young people around the world who are involved in it and enjoying it.
[11:12] And the Scout movement has been a great force for good. But especially, I want us to think about how it has inspired duty. On my honor, I promise to do my best to do my duty.
[11:25] Duty is not a very in vogue word, is it? Duty sounds hard. It sounds oppressive, even perhaps to our way of thinking when it's all about doing what you feel and doing what you like.
[11:39] But for the Christian, for the follower of Jesus, it's clear that we are those who are to do our duty to God. Now, last week, when we looked at the last part of chapter 9, we saw there that to be a follower of Jesus involves a cost.
[11:57] And when people came to Jesus and said, I'll follow you, or he said to them, come and follow me, he always laid before them the necessity of counting the cost before committing to follow Christ.
[12:09] To be his disciple is costly. And it seems natural as we flow on into chapter 10 that we now consider the duty of the Christian, the duty that is to be performed by every disciple of Jesus.
[12:24] But a duty in following Jesus is not oppressive. The duty in following Jesus is not conforming simply to some outward rules, some religion, some rituals, some acts of service.
[12:38] The duty that Jesus speaks of here is something much more than that. It is a duty of love. It flows from love. It is because of love.
[12:50] And it acts in love. That's what we find all the way through the New Testament. That actually, when it comes to what is the quintessential, what is the absolute, what is the one thing on the list of following Jesus, it is love.
[13:06] And so Paul writes to the Galatian Christians who are being tempted to become very religious and law-keeping, and he says to them, the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command.
[13:18] Love your neighbor as yourself. Nonetheless, this command is a command. This duty is not simply a matter of take it or leave it.
[13:32] It is something which is part of, essential to, following the law of Jesus Christ. And what is that command to love?
[13:42] Well, we see it here, lived out in the life of these 72, but we see it especially in the commission, the great commission that Jesus gave to his disciples in Matthew 28.
[13:53] All authority, he said, is given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. The love that we have for one another, the duty that we have to Jesus Christ is in making disciples, in preaching and living the gospel.
[14:14] And what we have here is those people, clearly, who came to Jesus and said, I'll follow you. And he said, right, come, go. Go. He sends them out, doesn't he?
[14:26] And what is it that Jesus is sending them out to do? What is the duty he's given them in making disciples? Well, it is this, that to follow Jesus, we've got to go ahead of him.
[14:37] Doesn't quite, that's counterintuitive, isn't it? To follow Jesus is to go ahead of him, not to follow behind him, but to go before him. There it is in verse one. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others, sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.
[14:58] So they were to go and prepare the way, as it were, for him. We know that he's on his way to Jerusalem for the final time. We read that in chapter nine, verse 51.
[15:10] Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem, aware of what was before him, aware that it would be his final days in this world, that he would go to the cross, that he would suffer, that he would die for his people.
[15:26] The greatest act of love. And as he traveled through Samaria and on into Judea and on to Jerusalem, he sent his disciples ahead of him, preparing the people for his arrival, for his coming.
[15:44] They would go to the villages and the towns that he was going to come to, and they were to get people ready. Now, Jesus wasn't sending his disciples to prepare hospitality.
[15:56] He wasn't saying, can you go and make sure that I've got a bed to sleep in when I get there and make sure that I'll be received and have food to eat and get a hotel and so on. No, he's preparing, or they are preparing the people to meet with Jesus, to become followers of Jesus, to put their faith and trust in Jesus, to receive him as their savior and their Messiah, to join, as it were, this burgeoning church of followers.
[16:27] Now, dear friends, if you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a disciple of Jesus, if you are a Christian, then you too have a similar duty of love to the people of this generation.
[16:43] You are to go and prepare people to meet with Jesus. That ultimately is what we call evangelism, preparing people to meet Jesus.
[16:57] And in this chapter, we have the disciples being sent to prepare people to meet with Jesus in their present life or, as it goes on, to prepare them to meet with Jesus in the future.
[17:13] And I want us to look particularly, just for a few moments, at what it means to prepare people to meet with Jesus in this life. What it means, if we want to say, to do evangelism.
[17:24] But it's not doing evangelism. It's being a follower of Jesus. It's being a disciple of Christ. It's as natural to the believer as singing his praises, as praying, as reading the Bible, witnessing and proclaiming, as we shall see, Jesus, and preparing people to meet with Jesus is bread and butter to you and to me.
[17:49] So what are we to do? What's the first thing that Jesus tells his disciples or instructs his disciples to do when they are to prepare people for Jesus? Well, it shouldn't surprise us.
[17:59] The first thing he tells them to do is to pray. Doesn't he? He told them, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask or pray to.
[18:10] The Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field. Why do Jesus' disciples pray? Because the harvest is plentiful.
[18:20] Do you see that? Abundant. Huge. Vast. In fact, of course, for us and for the disciples then, as they were going into those villages and towns, everybody that we meet with is part of that harvest.
[18:40] Every single person. And we can be overwhelmed by that, can't we? In fact, that may be some of the reason why perhaps we feel that we can't do this duty that Jesus calls us to.
[18:51] We feel that we can't share with people the things of Jesus because it's so vast. It's impossible. It's too daunting. It's daunting for the disciples then and surely it's daunting for us as well.
[19:09] That's why Jesus tells them to pray. The harvest is plentiful. Therefore, because of that, because it is daunting, because it is huge, because there is a great need, pray.
[19:23] And we're to pray to the Lord of the harvest. That's God himself. Pray that he would send out more workers. Well, in that sense, of course, if we are to pray, then we become the answers to our own prayers.
[19:41] Do we want more people to be sharing the gospel of Jesus? Well, therefore, let us share the gospel of Jesus. Lord, send out. Actually, the word there is thrust out, chuck out, push out.
[19:53] Sometimes the Lord has to give us a bit of a kick, doesn't he? To get us sharing the gospel. But what are we doing? When we're praying, in one sense, we're praying, yes, for people to preach the gospel.
[20:07] We're praying for those on the mission field. We're praying for those who are seeking to serve God and wanting that God would raise up men and women to serve him. But ultimately, we're praying for more disciples as well, aren't we?
[20:19] Remember the Great Commission? Go and make disciples. Because a disciple of Jesus is someone who will tell others of Jesus. We're praying for people to come to a living faith in Jesus Christ.
[20:34] We're praying for people to be saved. And in praying that way, we're recognizing and acknowledging that though we are called to prepare people to meet with Jesus, he is the only one who can meet with them.
[20:49] That we cannot save them. That we cannot open their hearts. Only God can do that. We can only prepare them to meet with him. In Acts 14, as Paul is preaching about Jesus, we're told of a woman called Lydia that the Lord opened her heart to receive the message.
[21:12] It wasn't Paul's persuasive words. It wasn't that Paul was such a great evangelist. It was that God opened her heart. When we pray, what are we doing?
[21:24] We're recognizing our own limitations. We're recognizing that we cannot do this. We're recognizing our weakness. Prayer is, in one sense, the truest expression of faith and trust in God that he will save people.
[21:41] Yes, we can put on these three days of evangelism and mission and we can go into the Hirsing Homes and we can do the food bank. We can do all the things that God has given us to do. That's our duty of love to the people of this community and this world.
[21:53] But if we don't pray about it, then we're saying, well, we can do it. We can save these people. It's because we're so lovely and we're so good and we're so caring.
[22:05] These people are bound to want to become Christians. By praying, we're saying, Lord, it's nothing of ourselves. It's you. We can only, as it were, perform the preparation.
[22:15] You've got to do the work. They've got to meet with you. That's what being a Christian is, isn't it? It's meeting Jesus. It's not simply conforming to a set of rules and regulations.
[22:27] It's not simply going along to church or doing certain things. A Christian is someone who's met with Christ. That's why we're nutters, aren't we? We speak to people and you've met with Jesus.
[22:38] Yes, we've met with Jesus. We know he's alive. We know he's real. We know that he walks with us and talks with us day by day. You look at us sideways, don't you?
[22:50] He's died. He's dead. Didn't he die on the cross 2,000 years ago? He died on the cross 2,000 years ago and three days later he rose again. He's a living saviour, a living Lord.
[23:02] It means, it must be praying. Praying and trusting the Lord that he will provide and in one sense that follows us and doesn't it go I'm sending you like willams around wolves we'll come back to that.
[23:16] Do not take a purse or bag or sandals. Don't greet anyone on the road. There's an urgency in that. There's also a sense of absolute trust. When we pray what happens? Our faith is strengthened.
[23:28] It's that little phrase, isn't it? I think sometimes you get it on a car bumper sticker. Seven days without prayer makes one week. W-E-A-K. Bonnie's probably got one because they do that in America a lot, don't they?
[23:41] Put bumper stickers on their cars. But without prayer we are weakened. When we pray our faith is strengthened because we are looking to, trusting and relying upon.
[23:51] Let me urge you, dear friends, urge you, keep on praying. Pray for the gospel music convention and pray for those three days of mission.
[24:04] Keep on praying. So they went to the people's houses. They went out as Jesus told them to do and they, as they entered the house they gave that what would have been a familiar blessing, a Jewish traditional blessing, peace to this house, shalom to this house as it were.
[24:22] And they were to eat and be provided for and that's fine but what were they to do? They were to present Christ. They would present the kingdom of God.
[24:36] Notice there verse 9, heal those who are ill and tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you. They were to make known what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
[24:50] They were to make known what it means to be part of Jesus' kingdom by healing the sick and later of course we're told that they delivered people from demons as well.
[25:01] Verse 17, Lord even the demons submit to us in your name. They were to present the power, the change, the transformation that meeting that Jesus brings and they were to show it.
[25:16] Now dear friends, for us it's slightly different but we are still the same in our evangelism in the way that we live our duty is to live out the transformation that Jesus brings.
[25:30] To live out the transformation that what it means to be part of the kingdom of God and that means living lives of love. Remember what Jesus said to his disciples in John 13, by this everyone will know you're my disciples if you love one another.
[25:53] Our lives dear friends are the most powerful tract that anybody will read for the gospel. your life and mine. Because if they look at you and me and they see that meeting Jesus has brought about a loving transformation, a life which is they jealously, earnestly want for themselves then they will be prepared to meet with Jesus.
[26:21] But if your life and mine shows no difference to those that we meet with, no matter how much we tell them about Jesus, no matter how much we tell them about the gospel and how much they're going to need to face God and forgiveness, if our lives do not radiate and present the love of Christ then we are on a fool's errand.
[26:45] Because they will just say what a load of hypocrisy. You preach this gospel, you tell us about this Jesus and your life is just completely exactly the same as ours.
[26:56] You're still involved in the same sins, you still use the same words, you still gossip, you still put people down, you're still judgmental, you're just like us. Where's the transforming power of the kingdom of God?
[27:12] We're to present to them by our lives the kingdom of God's power and we're to present to them by our words as well. Of course we're to preach the gospel. Tell them the kingdom of God has come near to you.
[27:26] We're to present the good news that God has come near to us in his son the Lord Jesus Christ that God has come into this world in Jesus Christ man and God in perfect unity and harmony that he's come to rescue, he's come to save, that you can know God, that he's near, he's not a distant God far away who is strange and alien but actually he has lived amongst us and walked amongst us and that he's near.
[27:59] Yes, we're to tell them of Christ. Evangelism is not simply doing loving things and showing care to the community but neither is it only the proclamation of the gospel of Christ.
[28:13] It has to be both because that's the way Jesus teaches us to do it. isn't he? It's not me, here's Jesus teaching his disciples, telling them how to go evangelism, how to reach the lost, how to prepare people to meet with him.
[28:31] We are Jesus' ambassadors, Paul says later on. We're his representatives who are to present the power of God's kingdom of love. Lives changed of people made whole.
[28:47] however, however, even as we go with prayer, even as we present with love and word the kingdom of God, the reality is that our message of love stirs up hate in the hearts of some.
[29:05] Notice how Jesus says to him in verse 3, I'm sending you out like lambs among wolves. I don't think it takes too much understanding of the nature and David Attenborough programs to understand what wolves do to lambs.
[29:24] And he tells them, verse 10, when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go to the streets. And later on, verse 16, whoever listens to you listens to me, whoever rejects you rejects me.
[29:40] There is to be an unwelcome rejection and wolfish behavior. Maybe that's the reason why many of us shy away from presenting Jesus in our life and word to our neighbors and friends.
[30:01] But dear friends, what this passage teaches us therefore is that we need to persevere. We need to pray and we need to present, we need to persevere. Now not all my sermons have three Ps.
[30:14] Okay, last we got three Us. Have you noticed that? I made a really hard effort to use three Us. But three Ps, we're back to Ps again because they're so easily fit in for three-point sermons.
[30:25] We're to persevere with those even when they will not receive the message. Of course, the sad truth is that those towns including the people of Samaria, we have read about them later, earlier, before, last week in chapter nine.
[30:44] When Jesus came to them, they rejected him. We present people this wonderful transforming. We tell them this is the best news in the whole world. This is better than winning the lottery.
[30:55] This is better than the Euro millions. This is better than anything else that you can taste, enjoy, or feel or experience and they think that they don't need it.
[31:08] They think that either it's not true, unimportant, boring, whatever, and they reject it. As I said last week, we looked at what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
[31:21] It means that there are times when we are unwelcome, unwelcome in our families, unwelcome in our relationships, unwelcome in our workplaces, our schools, our colleges. We'll become unwelcome because that's exactly how they treated Jesus.
[31:35] He says, if they listen to you, listen to me. If they reject you, it's because they reject me. And that's when we're tempted to give up.
[31:48] We've been doing missions in this church for donkey's years. We've been doing food bank for five years. We've been doing this for years and years. Where has it got us?
[32:00] We've got to persevere. We've got to keep going. We've got to press on. Remember, this is the 72 Jesus sent out, but just a chapter or so earlier, he sends out the 12 in chapter 9. And later on when we get to the end of the Gospels, he sends them out again.
[32:15] He's always telling us, keep on going, keep on presenting, keep on praying, keep on sharing the Gospel. Yes, there does come a time. And it's here, isn't it?
[32:28] A time when once we've presented and shared the Gospel, that we are to move on. Mustn't be too hasty to do that, though.
[32:40] He says, there is a time to move on. There is a time to change. But he doesn't say give up. He doesn't say, oh, well, if that town doesn't receive you, that's it, just come back home again, because, well, there's no point.
[32:51] No, keep on. There's many examples in history and in our own lives, perhaps, and the lives of people in the Scriptures who God has been so patient with, who first disobeyed and rejected, but later came to meet with Jesus.
[33:08] Think of the Apostle Paul. When he was sore, he was there at the murder of Stephen, and we're told he approved of him being killed. He had listened to the whole sermon of Stephen, a wonderful sermon, outlining God's kingdom and what Jesus came to do, and he rejected it so violently that he approved of his death.
[33:28] Chapter later, in Acts, what happens? He meets with Jesus. Jesus didn't give up on him. Jesus didn't cast him to one side.
[33:42] So, that's it, you've had your chance, mate. Now there must we. We are preparing people so that Jesus might come to them with mercy and grace.
[33:56] Preparing people to meet with the living one, the savior of sinners. There's something else here, isn't there, that we can't ignore.
[34:12] That's a challenge to us, I hope, encouragement to us as well. There's something here that's hard to take. Because when we're preparing people to meet with Jesus, we're either preparing them to meet with him here and now as their savior and their lord in this life, or we're preparing them to meet with him as their judge in eternity.
[34:40] so Jesus says there, doesn't he, in verse 11, I tell you it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
[34:56] Now we know about Sodom and Gomorrah, don't we? They're bywords for wickedness and evil and immorality but also they're bywords for God's judgment. Genesis 19, we're told that God poured out sulfur upon them, he destroyed those two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, he wiped them off the face of the earth because they were so wicked and so evil.
[35:20] God was just in doing that. But Jesus goes on to say in verses 13 and following that those who reject God's love presented to them by you and me will suffer and even worse judgment than that.
[35:43] Woe to Chorazin, woe to Bethsaida, they're two villages, two towns in the region of Galilee. He goes on later on to talk about Capernaum. These were the places where Jesus ministered when he was on the earth.
[35:56] These were the places where he performed miracles, raising people from the dead and healing the sick and people saw that and they heard and they recognized what this was God amongst them.
[36:08] But they didn't repent of their sins and they didn't put their faith in Jesus. They had the greatest privileges possible.
[36:23] But even then they still would not receive him. And what Jesus is saying is this, if I had walked the streets of Tyre and Sidon, two other very wicked cities that are judged by God in Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, if I had been there and performed those miracles, those people would have repented and would have turned from their sins and they would have put their faith in me.
[36:48] And here I am amongst you and you won't. In spite of my disciples coming and presenting to you the power of the gospel, the wonderful love of God, in spite of them persevering and seeking your best well-being, you still rejected them and in rejecting them you've not only rejected me, but as he says in verse 16, you've rejected him who sent me, you've rejected God.
[37:16] And for that there must be accountability. There must be judgment. Verse 14, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.
[37:33] Capernaum, remember, was the very center, base of operations for Jesus' ministry around Galilee. He was always there, he preached in the synagogue, he healed the sick, and perhaps they could think of themselves, well, we'll be all right on the day of judgment because Jesus was here and we saw him and we met with him.
[37:52] Wow, we're going to be exalted to the heavens, we've been so privileged, God must really like us. Jesus says, no, you will go down to Hades, the place of death, to hell.
[38:11] I can't say this more simply, I hope, clearly, I hope, that if you reject Jesus in this life, if you do not become one of his followers, if you do not receive the forgiveness that he brings, if you do not receive the love that he has for you, which is willing to wipe the slate clean and make you a child of God, if you will not meet with Jesus and receive him, then you will meet with him on the day of judgment, but it will be too late.
[38:51] It will be too late. And because you've heard the good news of Jesus, because you've been so privileged, and there are many millions who aren't so privileged, to hear of Jesus, to read his word, to hear someone explain to you the importance of following him, if you walk away from that, then Jesus says, there's only one, there's only one results, and there's only one result of a lasting, eternal, real punishment.
[39:35] you see privilege brings duty blessing must be answered and if this morning you're someone whose heart is still closed to Christ then if something doesn't change on the day of judgment it will be unbearable for you not my words Jesus's we're preparing people to meet with Jesus now or preparing people to meet with him in the future the wonderful good news that comes out of this passage is that there though there are people who rejected
[40:35] Jesus and the disciples there were those who received him we only have to turn the page later in chapter 10 when we come to a village we know what it's called because we know later it's Bethany and in that village there's a woman named Martha who lived with her sister Mary and we know later on their brother Lazarus verse 38 tells us as Jesus and his disciples were on their way he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened a home to him I don't know was that village a village that the disciples had been to those 72 to prepare the way for Jesus coming perhaps they told these people Martha and Mary and Lazarus this Messiah is coming and he's coming to bring salvation to your house and blessing to your life and so when he came to that village they opened their home to him pray present persevere it's our duty and it means following
[41:47] Jesus let's take a moment quietly to respond to God's word in our own hearts in prayer before we sing our final hymn stand and sing Jesus his lord creation's voice sorry the cry that echoes through creation is going to come up on the screen behind me Jesus is born прим inadequ transistor to gaze in their own
[43:20] God for the glory in the air it fills the heavens yet makes us round to taste the living is Amen.
[44:30] of love the price is paid to change others and therefore given and lead them proudly to the of God Jesus is Lord who shall enjoy the final and wish as he returns and every year of snow when every night and every heart will sing his glory the church of all will take his children home now may the God of peace who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep may he equip you with everything good for doing his will and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus
[45:49] Christ to whom be the glory today tomorrow and forever amen