Setting the Stage for Jesus

LUKE 10:1-3

Start with: Add kudos to Jacob for last week’s message, heavy topic

Also break due to Jesus balanced hard and soft words i think

For intro: setting stage use as plug for tech be excessive about all it takes, make list, today we talk about setting the stage for Jesus

ME: 4 minutes (LKQ STORY)

Just be raised hand this morning, Have you ever felt like what you do, doesn’t matter? I am sure that there are times in your job where you wonder why certain tasks are required. When I was 19 I took a job answering phones for a company that sold car parts. It was a pretty mindless job, but as many mindless jobs do, it led to some mindless mistakes on my part. You see when I answered the phone all day, people would ask for left side headlamps, then right side headlamps, then right side fender, then left side fender, then chevy, then ford, then ford, then chevy. So sometimes, the calls ran together and you would catch yourself remembering information from a previous call for the current customer. So I would enter the wrong part in the computer and this usually made customers unhappy.

Anyhow I can still remember about 20 years ago when a customer called me especially upset about the fact that I had sent him the wrong parts for a car he was working on. It was about 20 parts and I had sent him parts for a Ford rather than a Chevy. I had learned to kind of shrug these calls off since they happened enough, but on this particular day, this call was followed up by a call from the delivery driver who was swearing at me for the mistake I had made. Then after that, I got to talk with a manager for a little bit, about paying attention to detail, and how my actions affect others, and maybe something about me not listening, I don’t really remember.

So a few months later my company started instituting ride alongs with delivery drivers, and cross-department training days and when I went through this process, here’s what I learned. When I put an order in the computer it printed labels in the warehouse, a warehouse worker would ride around on a forklift and pull the parts, which for 20 parts would take 45 minutes on a good day. They would then take them to a staging area, where they would all be loaded on a truck. The delivery driver would be given an invoice to collect money from the customer. He would drive 30 minutes to that customer, unload the parts, carry them in to the shop, collect payment, get back in the truck, drive 30 minutes back, file his paperwork, and go home for the day. While at the body shop the customer would start repairing the car. Now that’s what would have happened if I would have sent the customer the right parts. But because I heard ford rather than chevy, here’s what happened. The customer was busy that day so he didn’t get to check the parts upon delivery so the next morning he goes to start on the car and realizes he has the wrong parts, so he calls me, and I write up a return and write the correct order. So the whole process has to happen again, but in addition to that, the driver also has to pick up the 20 incorrect parts, put them on his truck, bring them back, and a warehouse worker has to put them back on the shelf… and just for good measure, my company has to give our customer a credit to cover the 2 day delay we cost him because he put HIS customer in a rental car.

I know that story was long but I wanted you to feel the pain, and if you got lost anywhere in there just think about how upset you are when they get your order wrong at the drive-thru and you don’t realize it until you are already home. Here’s what I want you to hear from the introduction this morning. The menial, low-paying “insignificant” job that I took while I was in college was a task that “set the stage” for what most everyone else was doing in the company. If I hear ford instead of chevy it effects my warehouse worker, my driver, my returns department, our bottom line for sure, and most importantly our customer, (SLOWLY) the one who we want to believe in what we do. What I did… set the stage.

TRANSITION: Why that story today? Back to that question I asked you before the story, Have you ever felt like what you do doesn’t matter?

WE: 1 Minute (transitional)

Why does it seem like no matter how much I pray for someone, they don’t come to church? Why is that no matter how many times I ask my parents to come to church they won’t? Why wont’t the ladies I work with that complain about how bad their life is, just come to thrive group with me?

It becomes easy to get the call confused or become frustrated when we lose sight of the fact that Jesus wanted us to focus on the work, while He brought along the results. Let’s look at the text today, to see what Jesus asked us to do.

GOD: 3 Minutes (Text)

Text: Luke 10:1-3 NASB2020

Luke 10:1–3 “Now after this the Lord appointed seventy-two others, and sent them in pairs ahead of Him to every city and place where He Himself was going to come. And He was saying to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Go; behold, I am sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves.”

Let’s stop there to pray

Let’s see what’s happening here in our story, verse 1 begins with the words, “after this”, which should raise the question for us, “After what”? In the second half of the previous chapter Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy, Jesus describes the great challenge it is to follow him… from not having a place to call home, to not being able to say goodbye to your family… but going back a little further, we could see this as a second wave of selected workers for the kingdom. In chapter 5 and 6 of Luke, He called and commissioned the 12 disciples, so “after this” could simply be an indication of Jesus expanding the workforce.

Jesus then presents a pair of extremes so that there would be no question as to the need for workers. He uses the word “few” to describe the workers, and “plentiful” to describe those that need to hear the message. He doesn’t say we are a few workers short, or we almost have enough. He creates an urgency describing a field that is ready, which we might also mean (SLOWLY) that the harvest will go bad and die off…

And with that we see that He sends them out ahead of Him to set the stage for His coming.

What happens after this passage in the text? In Verse 17 of chapter 10 the 72 come back to Jesus rejoicing and saying demons submit to us in your name, but Jesus tells them to rejoice that their names are written down in heaven. Then Jesus tells the good Samaritan story as to provide further training for their work and says GO and do likewise. Almost as if He sends them out with instruction, they come back for more instruction and then he sends them out again. Just like we do here, come in on Sunday’s for training, back out into the world for ministry, an In and out rhythm. We see this kind of mentality in other places in the scripture. In Mark 5 when Jesus heals a demoniac, the demoniac wants to stay with Jesus, but Jesus says NO, go back home and show them what happened. The Bible tells them that he went back and told them how much Jesus had done for them. He set the stage for the gospel to come to his city, IN JESUS NAME.

WE: 1 Minute (transitional)

Sometimes I’m guilty like the demoniac that was healed. It’s easy to want to just hang out with Jesus and his disciples; Just come to church meetings, and hang out with my Christian friends. But He didn’t call us to Him just to stay, He called us to Go.

All of scripture is about setting the stage for the coming of Jesus. The entire Old Testament points forward to Christ. And the New Testament teaches of His life and instructs us for His second coming. So if He calls us to go out and set the stage for Him, how do we do it?

YOU: 2.5 Min. (setting the stage)

We can simply look back at our text for instruction.

First we set the stage for Jesus by… being available. We are busy people, if we are anything. We mentioned earlier in the sermon today that Jesus qualified the cost of being His disciple: He said to the point of not having a home or saying goodbye to people on our way. I’m not sure I can challenge you to sell your house today, but how often does our agenda of good things get in the way of Holy Spirit Queues in our life. We all have families, business, careers, and even ministries that are vastly important, and I’m not saying the answer is to consistently drop everything whenever we are asked to, but if setting the stage for Jesus means being available to share His message when needed we should always be ready to wrestle with that tension of being available to show others the love of Jesus.

We set the stage for Jesus by… Praying. Jesus said there’s a lot of work, and there’s not a lot of us. So if by prayer God might send 2 people to help me, could not 3 of us accomplish more than 1 of us? Not only that, but wouldn’t it be more enjoyable and mean less work for me? Church, I’m convinced God would lighten our workload if we increased our prayer load. (REPEAT) We aren’t supposed to ask God to lighten our load, we are to ask Him to send others to help us accomplish it... I wonder if we will get that concept this side of eternity?

We set the stage for Jesus by… Staying focused on the mission. The particulars of ministry, life, and culture are ever changing. But Jesus made the point that there will be wolves that want to devour us. I think wolves today could manifest themselves in careers, money, sports, hobbies, negative attitudes, and division within the church. Jesus knew we could act like sheep, Jesus knows the nature of wolves, and wants us to remember that belonging to Him and sharing His message are the main ideas that should drive our lives on a daily basis.

We set the stage for Jesus by… Staying in the field. Even as I was writing this part of the message, I was thinking about how nice it would be to just be sitting on the back porch with a cup of coffee taking in the morning. And we need that. In the busyness of our culture, we so desperately need more quiet time with God. But what I’m speaking to is the temptation to stay there. Jesus would be led or called away by the Spirit in His ministry, but it was always for the purpose of re-fueling to go back out on mission. I mentioned this earlier, there needs to be a steady in-and-out rhythm in our life. We come to the Word, we come to thrive groups, we come to the church, we fellowship with church people. But we need some people to wake up in the morning and remember that we have a Holy mission to go out to those places and people that do not know Him and set the stage for Jesus.

At this point I want to show you a video of a story a pastor told about doing the work in the name of Jesus, then we will give you an opportunity to respond today.

VIDEO HERE – 5 Minutes

kevin queen in jesus name chipotle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXwB1P_ccVM

WE: 3.5 Minutes (response) (invite team)

Wouldn’t it be a shame if Jesus shows up in someone’s life and they don’t know who He is because they were confused by the people that say they represent Him?

In our text today, Jesus sent them ahead to show people practical application of Christianity, so that when the Spirit of God moves on them they can say oh now I understand when (OR PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOU) Travis, when David, when Tom, when Debi, when Alyssa, do the work in Jesus name. Jesus will show up everywhere, but not without witness, what will people think of Him after his followers have set the stage?

WOULD YOU STAND THIS MORNING

This is typically a time in the service where we can begin wrestling with excuses that come to mind as to why this message is not for us. But one of the biggest excuses we need to get past is this God doesn’t need us excuse. Go! Pray! Etc… Jesus gives us imperatives here. Imperatives don’t usually come when you just WANT something done. Jesus us needs us working in the harvest. Christian service has no unemployment.

We can’t use the excuse of not being qualified. Jesus used common people. Jesus’ selection of people in the NT makes it hard for us to argue that we aren’t qualified, because the more qualified people thought they were the less Jesus seemed to use them. In the version of this passage we read today, Jesus doesn’t just say pray for laborers, He says PLEAD to the Lord for harvesters. If you feel like you need help today in ministering to others, 1 of 2 things is true. You are either not praying for help, or you are not positioning yourself to be in the midst of the harvest.

Your Pastor needs you to pray for laborers today. That more would come, that those working would be re-energized, and that you are doing your part to set the stage for Jesus.

LET’S PRAY TODAY

As we wrap up today we might note that Jesus didn’t say to pray for harvesters but to pray for laborers. I don’ t know about you but sometimes I get frustrated because I don’t get to lead more people to Christ. But in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 Paul writes: 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. (1Co 3:6-7 NAU)

Your work in the kingdom matters, stay on mission, and keep laboring. The Lord of the harvest will produce the results.

FALL FEST PLUG