Passage:
Luke 10:1-6 (We used the New Living Translation)
Overview:
This talk is a little unusual as we chose to do the prayer stations before the bulk of the talk.
Talk Part 1:
Start by reading the passage.
I’d like to start this morning with a question: How many of you have, over the last week, spent time evangelising towns in the middle east? Anyone? The last month? How about the last year?
I think that is a problem, not because I think you should be evangelising towns in the middle east but because I think that the fact that this is something most of us are never likely to do makes it easy to switch off when we read this passage. When we think of “mission” it is easy think of the things that “missionaries” do and not apply Jesus’ instructions here to our own lives.
But I believe that each one of us has a mission, a God-given purpose and I believe that it is as unique as you are. For some people your mission might involve teaching others, for some it is in caring for others, some of you will have a passion for the environment whilst others will have something completely different! Whatever it is we are called to do there is one thing we share in common – the challenge to share the love of God shown through Jesus in the place or situation that we find ourselves in. So I’d like to spend some time thinking about what each of our missions are and then we’ll look at how we can apply Jesus’ instructions to our own mission!
Prayer Stations:
Talk Part 2:
If you have an idea of what your mission is that is fantastic. Try to keep that thing in your head as we draw out three things from the passage that I think we might be able to learn from it.
“Now go, and remember that I am sending you out…”
Firstly it is important to remember to go! It is great to be passionate about something or to feel strongly about a particular situation but if that doesn’t inspire us to action we’ve missed the point. Jesus tells his disciples to go, to get out and put into practice the things he has taught them. What does it look like for you to go, to take action?
If we don’t feel like the things that we do are particularly “religious” or “spiritual” it can be easy not to think of them as mission but God has called each of us to be missionaries wherever we are – sharing his love no matter what the context. Do whatever you do as though you are doing it for God, demonstrating his love to whoever you meet!
“The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit…”
If we were asked how many disciples Jesus had most of us would answer with twelve but, in fact, this passage tells us that he had more – at least seventy-two more. Jesus had lots of people around him, he wasn’t trying to everything himself and he even sent the disciples out in pairs.
Whatever your mission is it is worth remembering that one of the first things that God says about people in the bible is that it isn’t good for us to be alone. We aren’t solo creatures, we were designed to work together and I can guarantee you’ll find you are more successful if you work with someone else! Who can you partner with in doing what God has called you to do?
“The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers out into his fields.”
Prayer is one of the most important gifts that God has given us! In the same way that a builder does their best work when they are in regular conversation with the architect who drew up the plans we are best able to do everything that God calls us to do! When we pray we develop our relationship with God and we learn to rely on him for everything.
So to sum up there are three things we can take from today’s passage: In whatever our mission is we need to be ready to take action, to work with others and not attempt to do everything ourselves and to remember to pray and to ask for God’s help in all that we do. When we do all of these things we can share his love with those around us to the best of our abilities!