Q2, S06 The Mission
Quarter 2, Session 6: Follow Jesus
WILL YOU JOIN ME IN THE MISSION?
Passage
Luke 10:1–24
Concept
This session falls under Jesus’ fifth question: Will you join me? As Jesus worked among the crowds of people, he also continually sent out his followers. First he sent out the twelve, as we saw in a previous session. In this session, we see Jesus sending out 72 of his followers. As he does, we find that there is joy in joining Jesus in his mission. The joy does not come solely from doing awe-inspiring things, but from being with Jesus and experiencing the joy that is to be found in the kingdom itself.
Key Question
Are you finding joy in Jesus and in his kingdom as you join him in his mission? If so, what is that like? If not, what is one step you can take to begin experiencing that joy?
The Network Tool
Do you see our Network tool being played out in Luke 10:1–24? With whom? How so?
Follow Jesus
Have you ever experienced something so good that you frequently look back on that experience and wish you could reproduce it? This is a common human longing. Maybe it’s a season of life where your kids were at a fun stage, or you had a group of friends that you miss dearly, or perhaps a season of ministry that has never been matched.
What was it that made those experiences so good? At root, what is it that you are longing for when you long for those times?
There is something inherently good about longing for what we lost when those good times passed us by. But it can be harmful to always be looking back. Sometimes we look back at the things that God did in the past—in our own past or in the Bible—and we long for God to do those same things again. But that’s really not the point. Our fascination with seeing God do these familiar miracles can distract us from the reality that God is always working. We can get so focused on wanting God to do a specific thing that we miss the many things he is currently doing around us.
The powerful experiences and displays of God’s power were never the point, anyway. What we really long for is God himself. We want to be with him. The true joy of following Jesus comes from his presence. It comes from experiencing Jesus as we experience his kingdom. That is where true joy is found. The key for us is to let go of the specificity of our expectations and to instead simply set out to follow him. To join him in his mission.
As Jesus sent out the 72, we find exactly this dynamic shaping their experiences.
1. Read Luke 10:1–24. Right off the bat, what strikes you about this passage? What do you find interesting or challenging or confusing?
Multiplication Is the Mission
In Matthew 9, which we looked at in a previous session, Jesus sent out the 12 to minister and heal and proclaim the good news. As he sent them out, he called them to pray for more laborers. Now in Luke 10, we find Jesus sending out 72. This increase means that the Lord is answering the disciples’ prayer! God is indeed sending out more laborers into the harvest. And even as he sends out these 72, we see the same pattern emerging: He once again tells this larger group to be praying for more workers!
The mission involves multiplication. We don’t simply answer the call. Answering the call means joining Jesus in his mission, and that means praying that God will continue to raise up more and more laborers. The kingdom was always intended to be a multiplying movement.
2. What do you tend to pray for the most? While we can and should pray about anything and everything, part of following Jesus in his mission is praying that God will raise up more laborers. Pause right now and pray that God will raise up and send out more people to accomplish his purposes around your area and around the world.
Facing Opposition
As Jesus describes the difficulty that his followers will face, the biggest hurdle was not paganism or people being hostile to religion. Jesus is describing this hostility even as he sends them mostly to Jewish households. Their biggest hurdle is not pure godlessness, it’s actually the existing religiosity. It’s people who are going to actively oppose them when they begin to proclaim Jesus—and everything he said and embodied—as the true Messiah, as the true answer to everything that is wrong in this world.
Religious people have built up everything around their system and their structure. And Jesus is actually unnerving to people like this because he comes and says that everyone is equal in his economy. All of the effort we’ve put into building up our religious lives does not place us in a higher position than anyone else. We are all the same when we stand at the feet of Jesus.
Some of the greatest opposition you will experience if you set out to follow Jesus is from other religious people who feel threatened because you are pursuing the works and ways of Jesus in a way or to a degree that they aren’t. It makes them feel guilty, so they try to slow you down.
3. In your experience, do you ever find opposition from religious people when you set out to follow Jesus? If so, what does this look like? Why do you think this happens?
Healing the Sick
Jesus sent these 72 out to heal the sick. As we read the New Testament, we find God performing miraculous healings through regular people. This is something that God does. We may experience this ourselves. But we shouldn’t be discouraged if we are not experiencing large-scale, flashy types of healings. Sometimes healing can be as simple as sitting and listening to a person. It’s remarkable how few people will sit down with another person and simply ask them about what is going on in their lives. There is a profound sort of healing that God does through us when we sit and listen to another human being expressing their pains and when we simply allow God to bring healing to another person as we pray for them and share the words, works, and ways of Jesus with them.
How different would this world look if we followed him out into the world and simply imitated Jesus? How much would people be impacted if we approached people with the compassion that Jesus had? If we spoke the healing words of Jesus over them? If we called them to the life and healing that we ourselves have found and are continually finding in him?
In verses 9–16, Jesus actually says that as we go into towns carrying his message and invitation, we are actually carrying the kingdom of God with us. If someone says that they’ve never experienced the kingdom of God, it could be that we never really offered it or never truly embodied it. But often it just means that they have rejected us, and in doing so, they have chosen to close themselves off from the kingdom.
How amazing would it be if we could follow Jesus to the extent that when a person avoids contact with us, what they are actually avoiding is contact with the kingdom?
4. Jesus implies that in rejecting us, people are actually rejecting the kingdom. What are the implications of this for the way Jesus intends for us to live in the midst of our neighborhoods, schools, hobbies, and workplaces?
Experiencing the Work of God
As the 72 returned from being sent out, their minds were blown with the incredible things they experienced. It’s not about the impressive things they did, the excitement comes from seeing God do things through them that they know they could never have done themselves.
Jesus affirms that what they were doing was actually making a dent in the kingdom of Satan (v. 18: “I saw Satan fall from heaven…”). But even in the midst of this, Jesus tells them that what they should actually be excited about is that they belong to God (v. 20). Doing powerful things can become our idol; the heart of all of this must be the joy we experience in being one of God’s children and in joining Jesus in his work. It’s about who we’re with rather than what we accomplish. If you start to worship the miracle, you will be disheartened when you can’t reproduce it. You will start to believe that God is only working when crazy things are happening. But if you find your joy in God and in his kingdom, then you can continue going to the next person—not in search of some experience, but out of joy and contentment in the presence of God.
5. Have you experienced a time when God was working in an undeniable way? What was that like?
6. What does it mean to experience joy in God and his kingdom even when nothing flashy is happening? Have you experienced times like this? What is it like?
7. Spend some time in prayer. Pray that God would continue to raise up more workers for the harvest. Ask him to fill you with joy as you pursue his mission. Pray specifically for the people on your list.
Key Question
Are you finding joy in Jesus and in his kingdom as you join him in his mission? If so, what is that like? If not, what is one step you can take to begin experiencing that joy?