The Joyful Prayer of Jesus

Opening Comments:

Please make your way to Luke 10:21-24 in your copy of God’s Word. That is found on page number 816 if you are using one of the provided Bibles in the seat rack in front of you. Today’s text picks up where we left off last week when the 72 short term missionaries sent out by Christ return and report back to him and it involves a prayer of Jesus to the Father followed by a private statement to the disciples.

Luke 10:21–24 ESV

21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” 23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,

We come before you today with humble hearts, seeking to know you more deeply. As we explore this passage in Luke 10, we ask that you open our eyes to see and our ears to hear the truth of your Word. Reveal to us the joy and delight that you have in sharing your heart with us. Help us to receive your revelation with humility and gratitude. We pray that your Spirit would guide us as we seek to know you better, and that our lives would be transformed by the revelation of your heart. May our time together today be a blessing, and may we leave here with a deeper understanding of your love and grace.

In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Introduction:

The passage we have just read together today is a continuation of the event reported to us in v.17-20 where the 72 short erm missionaries Jesus had sent out had returned from their journeys and reported back to Jesus all that had happened. They were absolutely jubilant at all they had been a part of. Now here in this passage we see the Lord Jesus being led by the Spirt to rejoice.

This is the second time we have seen in Luke where the Spirit of God has led Jesus to do something. The first time being following his baptism when the sprit of God led him into the wilderness.

Now we see here the spirt of God leading Jesus to rejoice in prayer.

The word translated here as “rejoice” is a much stronger word in the greek that means to be exceedingly joyful and exultant. It is often used connected with singing and dancing. This is great joy. This is to be so filled with joy you just cant contain it. This is the kind of joy that cant be worked up but that can only come from the Spirit of God.

Jesus rejoicing here is displayed in the form of a prayer full of adoration and praise for the Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

But, what is it that produced this great joyfulness of Christ that caused him to burst out in prayer?

That is what we will examine together today as we unpack “The Joyful Prayer of Jesus”

1.) The Sovereignty of the Father. (v.21)

Luke 10:21 ESV

21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

Jesus found joy in the reality that his father, the ruler of the universe, does exactly what he purposes and plans to do according to his own pleasure.

Everything God does brings him glory and is done however he wants to do it.

God is the one who makes the rules and everyone else has to operate within the rules he has created and that even includes salvation.

God’s plan for salvation is that “these things” ‌(the revelation of everything concerning Jesus, including His deity, messiahship, the miracles He performed, the gospel, the kingdom—in short, all the features of Christ’s life, ministry, and mission. John MacArthur, Luke 6–10, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2011), 343–344) be revealed to only those he had chosen to reveal them too and hidden from those he had chosen not to reveal them too.

That may not sound fare to you, but your not God, He is!

A.) God has hidden his plan from the “wise and understanding”

The “wise and understanding” are all those who are self-sufficient and proud. Those who are the “wise of this world.”

These are the people who are blinded to the the Lord of Heaven and Earth and to the truth.

The proud and self sufficient by their very nature sense no need for help and refuse to receive help. They don’t need God because they rest in their own merit and ability. This kind of person never comes to God .

God has chosen the gospel to confound these kind of people.

B.) God has chosen to reveal his plan to “little children”.

Salvation isn’t something that is only reserved for the super intelligent or elite of society; in Jesus day, this would have referred to the scribes and Pharisees; but to those who are like infants or very young children.

Jesus is painting a contrast between the “able and the “unable”.

Nothing illustrates this point more than an infant or a toddler. A young child has nothing to brag about, they haven’t accomplished anything, they can’t take care of themselves. They are totally dependent upon their parents for survival.

This is how it is with salvation. God accepts those who humbly admit their complete inability to save themselves and who acknowledge they are totally dependent on him. They are dependent and trusting spiritually. Responsive and submissive to spiritual truth. Have teachable and obedient spirits toward God.

These are those God has chosen to reveal himself to. Those who come to him like simple children.

The Apostle Paul made this same comparison when he wrote 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5

1 Corinthians 1:18–2:5 (ESV)

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Salvation doesn’t belong to the intelligent, wise and proud. It belongs to those who admit their foolish ignorance in humility with a broken and contrite spirit.

Isaiah 66:2 ESV

2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

Jesus was joyous that God the Father devised a plan that was so simple a child could embrace it while at the same time its simplicity would confound those who were so wise they thought it was beneath him.

Jesus rejoiced over the sovereignty of the Father.

2.) The Supremacy of the Son. (v.21-22)

Jesus here in his prayer is jubilant because of who he is and the role he plays in salvation.

A.) Who he is

Luke 10:21 ESV

21 In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

Notice he addresses God with “I thank you, Father”…and “yes, Father” in v.21.

By calling God his Father he was claiming to share in and be made of the same essence of God.

Just as our children are made of our own substance

He even goes as far to punctuate just who it was he was calling Father by using the very traditional designation for God “Lord, of heaven and earth”.

John even tells us that this was the very reason the jews wanted to kill him

John 5:18 ESV

18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Jesus doesn't stop there though, he then goes as far to praise God for:

B.) Being the revealer of God .

God in his sovereignty has set the plan of redemption in motion and has given the supreme power to bring that redemption to pass to his Son the Lord Jesus.

Jesus is the great revealer of God.

Luke 10:22 ESV

22 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

No one would know who Jesus is if it were not a part of God’s plan to reveal him to the world. At the same time, no one would know who the Father is except for him being revealed through Jesus.

John 1:18 ESV

18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

1 John 5:20 ESV

20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

Jesus is the sovereign dispenser of the knowledge of God the Father. He is exactly as Jesus revealed him to be.

This makes Jesus the “everything” of salvation. The only to God os through Christ.

Acts 4:12 ESV

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

3.) The Senses of the Saints. (v.23-24)

V.23 shows a shift from prayer to a private moment of instruction with Jesus disciples. This gives us the idea that perhaps Jesus prayer was public and in view of more than just his followers, but now they steal away privately just the 72, the 12 and any other true believers.

Luke 10:23–24 ESV

23 Then turning to the disciples he said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Jesus here addresses that they are blessed to “see what they see” and “hear what they hear.”

This isn't referring to physically actually hearing Jesus voice and seeing him but to those who believe in the great truths of Jesus as messiah and the salvation he brings.

There were so many prophets and kings of old who looked forward to the coming Messiah and wanted to understand all that he would do, but we today who are in Christ have been granted that privilege.

“the difference of twilight and noonday, of winter and summer, of the mind of a child and the mind of a full grown man”

J. C. Ryle, Luke: Volume I (Cambridge, England: James Clarke & Co. Ltd., 1976), p. 368.

We as believers today, under the new covenant, have been granted the privilege of having our senses (seeing and hearing) able to perceive the mysteries of the kingdom of God because it has been brought to us by Jesus according to the plan of the Father.

Ephesians 3:5 ESV

5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.

Jesus was saying his disciples (us by extension) were highly privileged to know, see and hear him and the truth he revealed.

Conclusion:

What is it that made Jesus rejoice?

The sovereign plan of God to reveal himself not to the wise of this world but to those who come to him like little children through the Lord Jesus Christ. To “see and hear” Christ is the greatest blessing one could ever receive.

Invitation to receive Christ, to thank him for his sovereign plan and revealing himself through Jesus.