Scripture Reading: Luke 10:1-20
After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
“The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.”
The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
When They Reject You, They're Rejecting Jesus | The Power (and Comfort) of Luke 10:16
Sermon transcript based on Luke 10:16
Opening Prayer and Introduction
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today, Jesus is giving instructions to 72 of his disciples. They are to go out ahead of him and prepare the way he's going to go to different towns and visit them, and they are the people who are going first to make sure that everybody knows that Jesus is coming.
These instructions are a mixture of instructions that are just for the people who are there, and also things that we should apply to ourselves and to the work of the church. And I wish I had enough time to go through all of them. I wish that I had the time to be able to talk about every very important piece of instruction. I regret that I can't do the laborers. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into His harvest. There's a big sermon there, isn't there.
But today, what I am going to do is talk about the passage where Jesus says, "The one who hears you hears me, the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me." What a fascinating piece of text Jesus gives to His disciples, and it's very instructive for us in the Christian church as well to hear these words and understand what they mean.
Part 1: "The One Who Hears You Hears Me" - Responsibility and Promise
So what I'd like to do is take a look at that first piece of that passage: "The one who hears you hears me." There's both responsibility and promise in this passage.
"The one who hears you hears me," says Jesus. That means that when those disciples go out, those who hear them are hearing the words of Jesus. And similarly, I think we are also representatives of Jesus when we speak God's Word. The one who hears us hears Jesus, and there is both responsibility and promise in these words.
Our Responsibility in Sharing the Gospel
When the church shares the message of Jesus, there is responsibility on our shoulders. First, we need to share that word accurately. That is, we need to say what Jesus actually teaches. And so we say what God has given us, we also give to the world.
And so you ask, "How can we do that?" Fortunately, the message of the gospel given to the world is relatively simple when we're sharing it with those who don't know Jesus. In fact, we say it every single Sunday in the Nicene Creed. If you were confirmed in a Lutheran church, you were required to memorize the Apostles Creed. Hopefully, that's the story of the gospel, isn't it. That's the heart of what we believe.
Now there's all sorts of theology that goes into the background of that, and we as the church lead and learn and study, but if you stick to the Creed, you get the heart of the story, and as you learn and grow, we can share God's word.
And Martin Luther points this out, when we pray the petition, "hallowed be thy name," he asks, "How is God's name kept holy?" He says, God's name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity. And we, as children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven.
Sharing Appropriately: Law and Gospel
We also do it appropriately, so we need to be accurate, but also appropriate. One of the hardest parts of sharing God's word is sharing law and gospel in the right way. That's because we like to share a lot of gospel. We like to say "Jesus loves you." We like to talk about the gifts that He wants to give the world, but we don't like to share the law. We don't like to say sinners deserve death and hell.
That's hard to share with someone you don't know very well, or someone you do. Even worse, it's hard to say to someone who doesn't believe in Jesus, "Yeah, your sins are serious. They deserve death and punishment."
And the key to understanding is that we have to remember that the law goes to the proud sinner, the one who is happy in their sin and needs to be crushed by the weight of it, and the Gospel goes to the person who has been crushed, who repents, who is in need of that savior.
That's actually the same way we use the gospel here in church. In fact, my sermons are designed to be a mixture of law and gospel to point out the problems and the solution. Our service starts with an application of this law and gospel where we proclaim that we are sinners who deserve nothing but present and eternal punishment, and then you hear the words of the absolution.
The Challenge: Actually Doing It
And finally, the challenge and responsibility is that we actually have to do it, share the gospel. We are a congregation that has wonderful staff. We have people who are always at work with the gospel, sharing it in and outside of our congregation. And we have people in our congregation who say, "We really want to grow the church." And they say, "As long as somebody else does it."
The best way to share the gospel is for you to do it.
The Promise: Christ's Power Behind Our Words
But there's a promise behind this as well. When we share the Gospel, "the one who hears you hears Jesus" - it's not your word, it's his, and His power is there behind it. He promises that the Holy Spirit is at work in you. How cool is that? It's actually not on you to convince the person or tell them what they need to hear in every detail and get it exactly right. Jesus is the one behind it.
The power of the message of the Kingdom of God comes not from you, but from Christ. The power of Holy Spirit is the one who is doing the convincing. And the same power that was behind the 72 when they healed the sick and cast out demons, that same power is at work when you share the Gospel, or when the church proclaims this word of God here in this space. Jesus is the one who is behind it. It's not our work, but his.
And what a joy it is to know that that responsibility is not on you to change the heart or the mind. We can't do it - only Christ and the one who sent us can.
Part 2: "The One Who Rejects You Rejects Me" - Comfort in Rejection
So Jesus says, "The one who hears you hears me," and then he goes, "and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me."
And this is, I think, where the relief lies in this word: "The one who rejects you rejects me." And I think this is to be a key comfort for the disciples that he sends out, because they need to know it's actually not about them.
Understanding Rejection
Because they go out two by two out through the villages, and they go to a new place, and they say, "The kingdom of God is here." But they know someone's going to say, "Nah." Even when the disciples go and they put their hands on someone and the sickness is gone, or when the demons are crying out and they say, "In the name of Jesus, get out of him." Someone is still gonna say, "Who do you think you are? What are you doing over there? You're just some charlatan, some trickster. Get out of here."
And it's not the disciples they're rejecting, but Jesus. And then it's not Jesus, but God, the Father, they're rejecting. And we have to remember that, that when the gospel is proclaimed, whether amongst Christians or out in the world, and people turn away. It is not you they reject, or the pastor or the church or a book, but Jesus. That is at the heart of this.
The Temptation to Find the "Secret Formula"
And when they don't listen very often, we turn to ourselves and say, "If only we could fill in the blank, then everybody would come to our church."
If only we could have a better music program, people would be lining up on the streets to walk into our church.
If only we could develop the right ESL, everyone will flood into our congregation.
If only our pastor preached a sermon that was more relevant to the needs of the world, then everybody's going to come in.
If only we could have a youth program that was so fun, everybody on the street would come in, and we'd be crowds of people here and then they wouldn't reject Jesus.
If only our pastor could heal the sick and cast out demons, then it would be amazing.
Oh, wait a second, that's what Jesus did! Healed the sick, cast out demons, walked on water, fed 5000 people, did the impossible, and what did they do to him? They put him on a cross and they killed him.
Trusting God's Work, Not Our Own
There is no secret formula, no special sauce, no particular way that if you do it just right, then the gospel will work. Because what that means is that we're putting the power of the word on us.
It is my job to convince the world that Jesus is alive. It is my job to put it just right and make it so perfect that they can't reject it. It is my job to use everything that I can to convince them that Jesus is Lord and the Holy Spirit. He's not doing anything.
But Jesus says, "The one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me." We just have to trust that the gospel is going to do its work, that the Holy Spirit will do what He promises to do, and it's not up to me or up to you to perfectly package it in exactly the right words, to make sure that you hit every mark and check every box, or else they will be forever damned to Hell. That's not on you. That's God's job.
And even when Jesus sends out the 72 to heal the sick and cast out demons, they too get rejected. That's why Jesus says, "The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me."
In Jesus' name, amen.
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