Luke 10:21-24
We welcome you to worship today in the name of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for joining us today, we're so glad you're here.
As I look at the church today, there is a widespread pervasive spirit of dissatisfaction, and discontentment in the lives of the people of God. Many have expressed discontentment with their relationships, feeling disconnected or unfulfilled in their interactions with family and friends. Similarly, their jobs are frequently a source of frustration, as they struggle with unfulfilling jobs, lack of opportunites for advancement in their careers. Sadly, even within their church communities, many are feeling disengaged due to the noticeable absence of genuine connections with fellow congregants where one would expect to find solice, and many have voiced their unhappiness with church leadership who appear to be uninterested in meeting their spiritual and/or emotional needs. I strongly believe that these attitudes are uncharacteristic in the life of a Christian, especially when we consider Whom we serve. Godliness produces contentment. However, they have indeed permeated the church, and are surely among the pews are expessionless faces, devoid of joy, due to dissatisfaction, and discontentment, two of the most insidious and destructive cancers on the planet, resulting in divisiveness and conflict making it challenging to maintain unity and are twice as lethal.
One example that immediately comes to mind is Absalom, the son of David, who if everything had gone according to plan, would have become king. However, Absalom was not content to wait for the natural death of his father, he wanted to sit on the throne now. So, like many of us who are tired of waiting, he took matters into his own hands, and it in 2 Samuel 18, his plan back-fired and he died. Most would agree, the history of mankind, can largely be seen as a continuous cycle of life and death, creation and destruction. An endless cycle of dissatisfaction and discontentment.
Most of us who have been in the church for any lenth of time are familiar with the sorrow of Jesus. It was the prophet Isaiah, who coined the phrase "A man of sorrows" in chapter 53, when he said the Messiah would be a man of sorrows; and acquainted with grief. And, as the months and weeks went by and He moved closer toward the cross, His sorrow increased. His perfect, sinless earthly life was one of sorrow and sadness, even sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, located across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives, a plca whose name literally means "oil press," symbolizing the excruciating emotional and physical struggle on the night of His arrest before His Crucifixion. And yet, He only deserved to be loved, worshipped and obeyed.
However, there is another side of Jesus, one I believe we are much less familiar with, and that is His joy. Scripture teaches every time a lost sinner repents and returns to the Father there is joy in heaven. It is astonishing to me that we have the capacity to make God, the Creator of heaven and earth, rejoice through our faithful ministry. Psalm 147:11, says "Yahweh is pleased with those who fear Him,Those who wait for His lovingkindness." God delights in those who respond to His holiness with awe and obedience that flows from the heart because they trust Him. I can’t imagine anything more encouraging, more uplifting, more motivating for those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ.
And, of course there is a future joy that awaits, when Christ will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords over a redeemed humanity, including Israel. In His high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus referred to "My joy," a joy that He possesses in His relationship with the Father, a joy that He asked to be granted in full to those who belong to Him. But there is only one passage that talks specifically about Jesus rejoicing, and we're going to look at that here in Luke 10 today.
First, let's pray
Heavenly Father,
Father, we thank You for Your Word, for Your amazing and boundless love made manifest through Your precious Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, a gift bestowed upon every one of us, no matter who we are, where we're from or what we've done, we are welcomed and embraced by Your grace that reaches down to even the chief of sinners. Lord, open our hearts and grant our finite minds insight into Your Word so that we might proclaim it with joy. Use us for Your glory, beyond anything we could ever imagine. We ask and pray these things in Christ's name.
Amen.
Today's Message: What Brings Joy to the Lord
Let me ask you to open your Bible, if you will to Luke chapter 10. I trust that you will follow along with me as I read to set the text in our minds. Luke 10:21-24.
"At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, "I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." And turning to the disciples, He said privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them."
Let's look at verse 21, "At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, "I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight." At that very time, this is significant because it lays the background to help us understand the depth of Jesus' rejoicing, He is seeing beyond the joy of successful ministry to the joy of eternal glory. The seventy had gone out two by two preaching the Gospel, heal the sick, and liberate those possessed by demons in the power and authority delegated to them by Jesus. When they returned from their mission to report their experiences while spreading the message, they were filled with joy, eager to celebrate their achievements and the triumphs. Jesus quickly redirected their enthuesiasm from earthly achievements that the spirits are subject to you, to the eternal in that their names are recorded in heaven from before the foundation of the world. He was moving past the present joy of this particular moment and entering into their future joy. We can never know the level of sorrow, the agonizing grief that He experienced over the lost souls, nor can we never know the level of supreme jubilation He experiened over the ones who will be in heaven.
The Greek verb "agalliáō" translated as He rejoiced greatly, rightly means He was so overwhemed, so comsumed excitement that their names were all recorded in heaven, that He was literally jumping for joy. So, its true that He was a man of many sorrows, broken hearted, weeping over the impact of sin on a depraved humanity, He was also a man of joy, always rejoicing filled with immense joy and exultation in the Holy Spirit over the future fulfillment of God's redemptive plan. You know why it gave Him such joy? Because it pleased the Father that He hid it from some and revealed it to others, everything is going exactly as planned. Look at what He says next, "I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight." By identifying God as His Father, Lord of heaven and earth, He leaves no room for any other deity. He's speaking to the One, true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and of our Lord Jesus Christ. In that one simple phrase, He's revealing His deity. Look at John 5:18, "For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. This is precisely why the Jews wanted to kill Him, He was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. Friends, even though the world seems to be getting progressively worse and worse from our human perspective, rest assured God is pleased that everything is unfolding precisely according to His divine plan.
Look at verse 22, "All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." The emphasis here it is God's unique privilege, to reveal the Himself to anyone He chooses. This underscores the exclusivity of the mutual bond shared between the Father and the Son. In John 14:7, Jesus said "If you have come to know Me, you will know My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."
I don't care how smart some of you might think you are, your IQ is irrelevant, it can even be off the charts, you cannot know God the Father, God the Son that way, you can't get there empirically. That's not to say that wisdom and intellectual intelligence isn't important, just that it must be revealed to you. That's why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2, "But to us God revealed them through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the depths of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the depths of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the depths graciously given to us by God, of which depths we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual depths with spiritual words.
1 Corinthians 1:27-30, "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may abolish the things that are, so that no flesh may boast before God." We are commanded to have childlike faith, completely dependent upon our Father's protection and care, accepting and trusting God's Word without question, it just believes. You don't have any right to question God. Isaiah 45:9, "Woe to the one who contends with his Maker— An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?" It's important to recognize that vastly different than childish faith, which typically consists of immature behaviors and attitudes. All of God's unchanging attributes are directly linked to His eternal pleasure and ever-lasting joy and will be put on full display when the plan of redemption is finished, His joy will be complete. Everything will be infinitely perfect in heaven, no more sorrow, rejoicing at all times. As Christians, we are commanded to to rejoice in the Lord Who is faithful and always finished what He starts, and to be content in whatever circumstances we're in. Our joy is not found in our circumstances, but in our Lord, Who never changes. Jesus has absolute sovereign authority over who enters His kingdom and He will reveal Himself, to whom He chooses to reveal Himself.
Verse 23, "And turning to the disciples, He said privately, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see." The Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of those who have believed and obeyed the Word of God. Despite what is often taught today in many churches, the Holy Spirit awakens the dead, He's rejoicing in the Spirit's work even though He's mentioned, the Holy Spirit is working behind the scenes. Then, there is the human element. John 14:15, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." Love can never be divorced from God-pleasing obedience, that's why Scripture places considerable emphasis on obedience. Look at Matthew 22:34-40, "But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. And one of them, a scholar of the Law, asked Him a question, testing Him, "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets." Let's look briefly at 1 John 1, verses 3 and 4, "What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we are writing, so that our joy may be made complete." I may not have physically seen the Lord, but through the testimony of those who saw it all, Scripture makes Him as He is as real to me as if I had been there, therefore I love Him and consistently strive to obey His commands as though I have seen Him with my own eyes.
That brings us to verse 24, "For I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them." Jesus is emphasizing what an extraordinary honor and privilege it is for a bunch of nobodies like us to be granted such a rare opportunity to have access to these sacred Truths, elevating our comprehension above the worlds. Historically, figures such as seen as divine messengers, prophets from Moses to Micah and there were some of the most righteous people in all of Israel, the heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews 11, by faith they believed what they hadn't seen. And all the kings of Isreal, men who wielded great power and authority, longed to see the extraordinary divine revelations we see today, but didn't know. During the period known as the intertestamental period, which spanned for approximately 400 years, there hadn't been a prophet since Micah whose book was written around 430 B.C., and was the final book in the Old Testament, who prophesied the Messiah will be born of a virgin in Bethlehem, nor was there not a Jew on the throne of Israel, and the Jewish people were under the rule of foreign powers, including the Persians, the Greeks, and later, the Romans which was significant, because it contrasted sharply with the widespread anticipation deeply ingrained in the Jewish people, that the coming Messiah was a promised descendant from the line of King David who will bring deliverance to the Jewish people and reign on the Davidic throne, restoring the Davidic monarchy. Yet, relatively few Jews accepted Him as the "Annointed One sent by God" to usher in a utopian era of peace. According to the Hebrew Bible, Ezra, who is traditionally held to be the author of the book of Ezra and the books of Chronicles, expressed that the Messiah whom the Most High hath kept until the end of days, who shall spring from the seed of David, and shall come and speak unto them; he shall reprove them for their ungodliness, rebuke them for their unrighteousness, reproach them to their faces with their treacheries. (4 Ezra 12:32)
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells us the purpose of the parables, "And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?" And Jesus answered and said to them, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull,
And with their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Lest they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’
But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." Beloved, we comprehend these mysteries as they did, not because we are worthy of such knowledge, but because God, in His grace, decided that those who are humble in their salvation might give Him the glory. If you comprehend the sacred secrets of the Gospel, it's not on account of your worthiness or your own merit, it's only because God has graciously granted it to you for you to know. It's a precious gift to be received, not achieved. We are so richly blessed because God has determined to reveal it to us.
May it be so..
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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