What A Message We Have In Jesus – A
What A Message We Have In Jesus – A
Luke 9:1-9
Today, Pastor Jack tells us that even our calling comes with equipment. As a Christian, we’ve been called by Jesus, and given the power and authority to get the message out and see people saved
Today, Pastor Jack tells us that even our calling comes with equipment. As a Christian, we’ve been called by Jesus, and given the power and authority to get the message out and see people saved
Father, we ask Lord that you bless your word to our hearts.
And Father God, I just pray right now that you would just change us by the power of your spirit.
Lord, you know each and every one of us this morning, you know exactly where we’re at with you.
And it is our prayer, Lord, that your sovereignty would permeate every one of our lives to whatever degree is necessary.
This morning. On this, the Lord’s Day, we proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
He both came for us dying on the cross and having been risen from the dead, he is our great God and savior.
And so father, today we pray that in these days in which we live, you would galvanize us and send us forth into this world.
What a great moment that we live in May we rise to the occasion for we ask you Lord in Jesus name and all God’s people said, amen.
Amen. Listen, grab your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter nine. Can you believe it?
Or in Luke chapter nine, it seems like we spent forever in Luke chapter eight.
It was a huge chapter with a lot of great events.
But Luke chapter nine this morning, we are in verses one through nine. Luke chapter 91 through nine.
And the title of the Message today is what a message we have in Jesus, what a message we have in Jesus Christ.
And it means everything to us who are believers. And I don’t know about you.
Maybe you can remember where you were when you came to Christ and where you were when Jesus Christ became so very real to you as a believer in that moment of time.
And it could have been that you had an atheistic background or you had a background, you didn’t care at all about God or maybe you had a very religious background.
But there was a moment when you encountered the Lord and it has changed your life forever and you may not be able to pick a date.
I mean, some of us can pick a date, but there are some of you who can say, well, it happened during the course of this particular year or that year and your life was changed.
There are things that happen, there are things that affect our lives like nothing else.
And of course, for me, I trust for you that Jesus Christ was that ultimate experience.
But I got to tell you as I thought about things that affect our lives.
We’re going to see the lives of the disciples, the lives of the apostles radically affected this morning and I jotted down a things that would really, really jar my memory regarding things that made an effect.
And I want to kind of grease that a little bit with. You.
Think for a moment, what was the few most important things that’s ever happened in your life?
Maybe it was getting that incredible diploma that you worked so hard to get.
Maybe it was your first day of school. I remember crying my guts out.
I was such a mama’s boy when uh when it came time to go to kindergarten or first grade, it doesn’t matter because I cried for, I think the first few years, um I thought it was fine just to stay at home.
I love being at home. I didn’t know these kids and I didn’t want to take my lunch.
I wanted mom to cook me lunch. What is that thing all about?
And then I remember going to school and I hated it, but it stuck in my mind.
Maybe it was some achievement.
Maybe it was a summer vacation that you still remember with fond memories.
It was that summer vacation when this or that happened.
And I was really spoiled in the sense that I was born and raised in San Diego.
We moved up when I was young to Orange County and you guys, Orange County in the sixties was an awesome place to grow up in.
Not like that. It is.
Now, listen, our parents used to be able to drive their cars onto the beach down at Huntington.
Can you imagine doing that? Now?
We just would play at the beach and enjoy life and it was great. Orange County.
You could actually smell orange blossoms in Orange County.
In those days, many of the towns were completely stocked with bean fields and strawberry fields.
I remember that it was real California to me. I remember some events in school though.
I remember in the fourth grade we took a field trip to the Irvine ranch and I don’t mean that was some sort of a store.
It was the real Irvine ranch, the family, the Irvine family, we got to go to the ranch as 1/4 grade field trip that impressed me.
This was awesome too. This next one, hang on to your seats.
I don’t even know how this ever happened somehow. It was our school teacher in the 7th grade.
Her husband was some big will at United Airlines and she got every one of our seventh grade class.
There’s like 37 kids, 35 kids. She got us and just us, but all of us on a United Airlines flight out of Los Angeles.
Her husband was flying the plane and we took off from L A and we flew out over the Grand Canyon, we got special clearance and flew the whole length of the Grand Canyon.
Then we flew to San Francisco and then all that events with all that flying 3, 3.5 hours later, we landed back in LA.
And us kids didn’t even know what kind of a privilege that was. But it changed my life.
The reason why or how it changed my life is because I got the bug to want to learn how to fly, which leads me to this.
I’ll never forget. And really this has something to do with the message. It really does.
I’ll never forget after catching that bug about flying and looking down upon the world because it looks so peaceful from up there that shortly after Lisa and I were married, I’ve been taking my pilot’s training at Orange County Airport in Fullerton Airport that my instructor who I had grown somewhat accustomed to having him right there in the right seat next to me.
We landed at Fullerton and he said, why don’t you tax me out over here for a moment?
I thought maybe something was wrong with the plane that he knew about.
And I didn’t, we taxed out, he opened the door and he signed my log book and he said, you’re on your own now.
And I said what? It completely caught me off guard.
I knew in the book that that day was coming. It’s called your first solo.
I didn’t think I would ever get to that point.
And he said, you’re ready to go now, you’re on your own. I was terrified, terrified.
I’m telling you, can you imagine taking an airplane up and flying it around over your head with some nut up there alone for the first time, everything changed.
That moment, the moment that he got out and shut the door, the sound of the door shutting sounded different.
The engine sounded different. Something’s wrong with it. It’s going to break the wings.
I think they’re going to come off.
Then the tower clears you to taxi back into position and you have to tell them this is 269 Juliet for the first solo and the guy says 269 Juliet clear to take off.
Good luck. Good luck. I don’t want good luck.
I want God almighty behind the yoke of that plane. I want to be the co pilot of the moment.
I want God to be leading it and you take off and you’re up there.
And after about, I don’t know how long the butterflies are not flying as much and you begin to realize, you know what I’ve been well trained.
I’ve been well trained when you come around and you land alone for the first time.
There’s this incredible sigh of relief.
You know what I can do this, I can’t believe that I can do this.
That feeling the apostles, the disciples had to have felt something like that with what we’re going to see right now.
Luke chapter nine verse one starting there. Follow along with me.
Then he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases.
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
And he said to them, take nothing for the journey, neither stabs nor bag, nor bread, nor money and do not have two tunics apiece, whatever house you enter, stay there and from there, depart and wherever you will not be received.
When you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.
So they departed and went through the towns preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Now, Herod the tetra heard of all that was done by him.
That is Jesus and he was perplexed because he was because it was said by some that John that is John, the Baptist had been risen from the dead.
Some said that it was Elijah that had appeared and by others, it was said that one of the prophets had risen again.
Herod said, John, I have beheaded, but who is this? Of whom? I hear such things?
And so he that is Herod sought to see Jesus. Jesus had been tutoring the disciples for quite a while.
Now. They had been taking off together, going around and landing together.
Jesus was ministering and they were assisting yet all the while as Jesus was doing what he was doing, they knowingly or unknowingly were picking up the habits of the messiah.
I think that’s awesome. There’s one thing about studying and knowing things in your head, that’s a quite different thing than it is to get out and to do those things.
And Jesus has got those disciples on the verge of doing those things.
They could have maybe preached a message about how to minister.
They probably could have, they heard him enough, but could they do it?
Could they get out and do it? And you’ve got to remember who these guys are.
# 1, at this point in time, they are, they’re not filled with the Holy Spirit.
At this point in time, church, they have no Bible.
They have the Old Testament, but they don’t have the New Testament at this point in time.
They’re not quite exactly sure what’s going on from one moment to the next.
They’re very excited and they see Jesus fulfilling the word of God and then the next day they’ve got doubts and we’re often like that as well.
But the time had come for these guys to grow up and to become men of God and men in the spirit point.
Number one, what a message we have in Jesus is what we’re learning and look at verses one and two.
It’s a message that is ordained by God and I want you to jot that down and find comfort in it.
Thank God. The message that you and I are told to go out and tell the world is not our own message.
Aren’t you glad about that? I got to tell you, I’m so glad about that.
We are to preach and to give and to live and to share with our friends and family and all those that are around us.
A message ordained by God because it’s his, it’s not ours.
And the first thing that we see right here is a message ordained by God is that it’s ordained to be fully effective Christian in your lap is the message of God and it is fully, fully effective.
It’s not weak at all. This efficiency of the scripture is perfect.
Verse one, it says, then he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority.
So he ordained them to effectiveness.
You need to remember that what God has called you and I to do is not to fail.
Now church listen carefully to this. Don’t misunderstand me church.
I want to ask you do ministries come and go, do churches start and fail, do things get going and then maybe it’s 10 years or 50 years or 100 years.
A work of God ebbs and flows or winds up beginning and ending. Yes, it does. Those things happen.
Sometimes God’s done with it. It served its purpose. Sometimes men destroy it because they get goofy.
But here’s the awesome thing, the message never changes and God will get his message across, listen with or without us.
I want him to do it with us. Amen. I don’t want him to pass us by.
And so we want to be ready.
The disciples are going to find out what it is like to be fully effective for the kingdom of God and church.
Listen, if you’re not listening carefully, you can X yourself right out of this message thinking that ministry is reserved for people who we pay to go do ministry wrong ministry.
For those super Christians wrong. Again, there are no super Christians ministry is for somebody else.
It’s, it’s for the person to the right of me. It’s for the person to the left of me. No.
Are you a Christian? If you say yes, then you and I are ministers together in the cause of Christ, there is no neutral ground.
You’re either a Christian and your life is showing an example and pointing others to Christ to some degree or another or you’re not.
It’s amazing. And we’ve been learning all about that but the gospel that God has given us is fully effective.
Notice this, he called us. He called them to himself that as Jesus brought them the invitation that they would exist or minister or be with him.
Secondly, he gave them power so he invited them, he gave them power.
Jesus handed them as it were that power of the Kingdom of God so that they could get the task done by the way, that word power is that famous Dous or where we get the word dynamite or dynamic.
It means to be full of power. I love that Jesus gives them power to go do this.
He doesn’t give them sort of power. He doesn’t give them kind of power.
But we learned last week that he gives them super power.
This superpower from God that is listen, it is linked to the message of Christ.
The message of the Bible from Old, the New Testament is a message of power, a power to love those that might hate you a power to reach out to those who listen, you may not even want them in heaven, but God gives you the power to reach out to them and to share Christ with them to love them.
The word power is that God has built into the scripture.
It’s in the Bible, DNA that it would be effectual. It’s amazing to me and then he gave them authority.
This is an amazing word authority. The word means that in the Greek that Jesus Jesus gave them the right.
The word authority is the right to use that power. Are you a Christian this morning?
God has invited you to go out into the world and He’s giving you the power to do that and He’s given you the right to do it.
If somebody comes up to you and says, what gives you the right to preach the gospel, you know what your answer is church, please don’t feel when they ask you this, who gave you that authority answer?
Jesus Christ. Did the Bible says it right here in Luke chapter nine, Jesus did, where were you ordained?
Listen God ordains. Yes. Yes. I know that ministries and universities and seminaries ordain people.
Do you understand though that it is supposed to be the school or the ministry or that seminary’s agreement with God that the person is called?
Did you hear that you can graduate from seminary with a phd?
You can graduate with a doctorate, a master’s or whatever it is, you can be the most skilled orator in your class.
But that doesn’t mean God called you to do the ministry in an ordained sense as God would say, yeah, but I got my degree and I got my ordination.
But did God ordain you into the ministry is the big question and here is the glorious and wonderful answer in my opinion is it, is this, if you are willing to follow the Lord and to serve the Lord, he will ordain you to a task, he will ordain you to a call, it could be an encouragement ministry.
It could be that you are one who administrates, it could be whatever God does the ordaining men to recognize that, but whatever it’s fully effective.
And so he gives them the authority or the right to manifest the kingdom. Work in our lives.
Hebrews chapter four verse 12 says for the word of God is living and powerful. I love that.
That’s why when you take your bible and you go home or you go to breakfast this morning and you set your bible on the restaurant table, especially if it says like, you know, holy bible on the, on the front, the waiter or waitress is going to look at it and say, wow, what’s that?
It’s the word of God now, watch out Now it’s powerful and live.
It’s, it’s alive, it changes people’s lives. It’s for real.
He says in hebrews 412 that the word of God is living and powerful sharper than any to its sword.
That means it gets down into the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Remember that?
Because he’s going to wrestle with God’s word. Why?
Because it gets down into the heart into the thought of the matter.
He says that it goes down to the place of the piercing, even between the division of the soul and the spirit.
Yes, there’s a difference between the soul and the spirit.
The spirit is what lives forever in heaven or hell and the soul is your mind. It’s the Greek word.
Sukey, psychology, the science or study of the mind.
But the spirit and the soul are two different things and the Bible gets down in between it and divides it.
Are you born again? How do you think?
Do you know God or do you not the Bible discerns that and speaks to us about that.
And then also it says that it divides between the joints and the marrow and the discerning of our thoughts and the intentions of our hearts.
The Bible does and of course, Isaiah 55 10 and 11, it says for as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven falls and does not return there but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud that it may give so seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
So shall my word? That is God’s bible that goes forth from my mouth.
It shall not return to any void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it will prosper in that thing for which I have sent it.
That means if you share Jesus with somebody, God and the power of God is behind it, you’re not alone.
I’m scared to share Jesus, share Jesus and watch what happens.
But if I do that, I’m going to be solo. Listen, you won’t be solo.
There’s an instructor with you, Jesus said he’s the Holy Spirit and he’s not going to leave you.
Can you guys hear me? I need, I look, I’m excited about this message.
You got to get excited if you not fake it.
But God is telling us if a moment, we don’t raise our hands open, raise the Lord.
I’m a Christian. Then Jesus is going to be telling us in a moment.
Then get out there and spread the kingdom. But I’m scared he’s already signed your logbook. You can go.
But I don’t know what that what if I go, you will not fall.
You’re not going to fail. God gives us his word. We need to let it go.
John 14 12. Listen to what the scripture says in John 14 12, Jesus was speaking.
He said most assuredly I say to you and I hope you understand that to me and you, he who believes in me and the works that I do will do also and greater works than these will they do?
Because I go to the Father Jesus is saying that every believer has the opportunity to do greater works than he did himself.
He said, Jack, I never raised anybody from the dead. He didn’t ask you to raise somebody from the dead.
Exactly. He told you to go and share the gospel. That’s what we do. And that’s a greater work.
The calling comes with equipping. It’s got everything there.
The equipping is the power and the authority that God has given to his believers. It’s beautiful here.
Luke uses the word to that he gives that Jesus gives this power.
Luke uses the word in the Greek that means to bestow, listen to this.
Jesus says to them in giving them the power and the authority.
It means to bestow upon them, to place the hand upon them to convey or to communicate authority and power.
It means to act as a king to crown a knight. I love that.
Jesus is saying, all right, you guys, I’ve crowned you or I’ve knighted you into the service of the kingdom.
I love that thinking. And so as a Christian, you and I have been called to go out and to serve Christ through this amazing thing of living and preaching the gospel.
And as a Christian, we all have different concerns. Personally, you might have a concern to see people comforted.
Did you know God’s called you to do that?
He said, well, how do I know if I’m called to do something?
If I’m a, if I’m a believer, how do I know if I’m called to do something?
Well, what do you care about? What do you really care about? Is it spread in the gospel?
Then you have the heart of an evangelist. Is it comforting those that are sick?
God has given you that kindness and that mercy. What is it in your life? Now?
Listen, Christian don’t answer but whatever it is in your life, ask yourself this next question.
Am I doing that thing that I would love to do for God?
Ask yourself that, that am I doing that thing?
And only you can answer that only I, I can answer that for me personally, I have an absolute burning passion to see people know the Bible.
Um Outside of that, there’s not much if somebody comes in for counseling for me.
I listen to them and when they’re done 55 minutes they’ll talk for 55 minutes.
The appointment’s for an hour, they’ll talk for 55 minutes.
And in five minutes I give them the verses that they need. You.
See, other than how I counseling to me, I didn’t say I was a counselor.
My passion is to teach the word of God.
There are those that have the awesome gift of being a counselor and they’re amazing at it and they’re fantastic at it.
I’m not so good at it, but I’ll give you the Bible and I know what part of the Bible to give you.
Why? Because I love being a student of the Bible. That’s my thing to give the word of God.
So, what am I doing? You guys right now? It’s terrifying.
But it’s like flying the airplane for the first time, every Sunday, every Wednesday, Sunday night as we’ll get together tonight.
Wherever I’m speaking, I’m terrified, but I can’t wait to get behind the wheel or the cockpit of the Bible.
Do you understand? I’m saying? You got to do it.
Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on real life radio with his message called, what a message we have in Jesus.
You know, this teaching today is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Gospel of Luke.
It’s a series on the book of Luke and the unveiling of Jesus Christ to this World.
And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Hey, everybody, Pastor Jack here.
And I want to let you guys in on something. We literally brought a book back to life.
We resurrected a book that was out of print for your junior higher high schooler and your college age kid.
You’ve got to get a copy of Dr A E Wilder Smith’s book titled He who thinks has to believe.
So, mom and dad, grandma and grandpa listen to this, get this book, your kid, junior high, high school, college age kid, because as they get into this book and they’re going to want to get into it, it’s fascinating.
They’re going to love it, sit down with them, read it with them. Watch what happens.
Their world is being rocked and you need to infuse truth into their life with this great book.
Once again, don’t miss it, don’t miss it.
He who thinks has to believe.
And Father God, I just pray right now that you would just change us by the power of your spirit.
Lord, you know each and every one of us this morning, you know exactly where we’re at with you.
And it is our prayer, Lord, that your sovereignty would permeate every one of our lives to whatever degree is necessary.
This morning. On this, the Lord’s Day, we proclaim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.
He both came for us dying on the cross and having been risen from the dead, he is our great God and savior.
And so father, today we pray that in these days in which we live, you would galvanize us and send us forth into this world.
What a great moment that we live in May we rise to the occasion for we ask you Lord in Jesus name and all God’s people said, amen.
Amen. Listen, grab your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter nine. Can you believe it?
Or in Luke chapter nine, it seems like we spent forever in Luke chapter eight.
It was a huge chapter with a lot of great events.
But Luke chapter nine this morning, we are in verses one through nine. Luke chapter 91 through nine.
And the title of the Message today is what a message we have in Jesus, what a message we have in Jesus Christ.
And it means everything to us who are believers. And I don’t know about you.
Maybe you can remember where you were when you came to Christ and where you were when Jesus Christ became so very real to you as a believer in that moment of time.
And it could have been that you had an atheistic background or you had a background, you didn’t care at all about God or maybe you had a very religious background.
But there was a moment when you encountered the Lord and it has changed your life forever and you may not be able to pick a date.
I mean, some of us can pick a date, but there are some of you who can say, well, it happened during the course of this particular year or that year and your life was changed.
There are things that happen, there are things that affect our lives like nothing else.
And of course, for me, I trust for you that Jesus Christ was that ultimate experience.
But I got to tell you as I thought about things that affect our lives.
We’re going to see the lives of the disciples, the lives of the apostles radically affected this morning and I jotted down a things that would really, really jar my memory regarding things that made an effect.
And I want to kind of grease that a little bit with. You.
Think for a moment, what was the few most important things that’s ever happened in your life?
Maybe it was getting that incredible diploma that you worked so hard to get.
Maybe it was your first day of school. I remember crying my guts out.
I was such a mama’s boy when uh when it came time to go to kindergarten or first grade, it doesn’t matter because I cried for, I think the first few years, um I thought it was fine just to stay at home.
I love being at home. I didn’t know these kids and I didn’t want to take my lunch.
I wanted mom to cook me lunch. What is that thing all about?
And then I remember going to school and I hated it, but it stuck in my mind.
Maybe it was some achievement.
Maybe it was a summer vacation that you still remember with fond memories.
It was that summer vacation when this or that happened.
And I was really spoiled in the sense that I was born and raised in San Diego.
We moved up when I was young to Orange County and you guys, Orange County in the sixties was an awesome place to grow up in.
Not like that. It is.
Now, listen, our parents used to be able to drive their cars onto the beach down at Huntington.
Can you imagine doing that? Now?
We just would play at the beach and enjoy life and it was great. Orange County.
You could actually smell orange blossoms in Orange County.
In those days, many of the towns were completely stocked with bean fields and strawberry fields.
I remember that it was real California to me. I remember some events in school though.
I remember in the fourth grade we took a field trip to the Irvine ranch and I don’t mean that was some sort of a store.
It was the real Irvine ranch, the family, the Irvine family, we got to go to the ranch as 1/4 grade field trip that impressed me.
This was awesome too. This next one, hang on to your seats.
I don’t even know how this ever happened somehow. It was our school teacher in the 7th grade.
Her husband was some big will at United Airlines and she got every one of our seventh grade class.
There’s like 37 kids, 35 kids. She got us and just us, but all of us on a United Airlines flight out of Los Angeles.
Her husband was flying the plane and we took off from L A and we flew out over the Grand Canyon, we got special clearance and flew the whole length of the Grand Canyon.
Then we flew to San Francisco and then all that events with all that flying 3, 3.5 hours later, we landed back in LA.
And us kids didn’t even know what kind of a privilege that was. But it changed my life.
The reason why or how it changed my life is because I got the bug to want to learn how to fly, which leads me to this.
I’ll never forget. And really this has something to do with the message. It really does.
I’ll never forget after catching that bug about flying and looking down upon the world because it looks so peaceful from up there that shortly after Lisa and I were married, I’ve been taking my pilot’s training at Orange County Airport in Fullerton Airport that my instructor who I had grown somewhat accustomed to having him right there in the right seat next to me.
We landed at Fullerton and he said, why don’t you tax me out over here for a moment?
I thought maybe something was wrong with the plane that he knew about.
And I didn’t, we taxed out, he opened the door and he signed my log book and he said, you’re on your own now.
And I said what? It completely caught me off guard.
I knew in the book that that day was coming. It’s called your first solo.
I didn’t think I would ever get to that point.
And he said, you’re ready to go now, you’re on your own. I was terrified, terrified.
I’m telling you, can you imagine taking an airplane up and flying it around over your head with some nut up there alone for the first time, everything changed.
That moment, the moment that he got out and shut the door, the sound of the door shutting sounded different.
The engine sounded different. Something’s wrong with it. It’s going to break the wings.
I think they’re going to come off.
Then the tower clears you to taxi back into position and you have to tell them this is 269 Juliet for the first solo and the guy says 269 Juliet clear to take off.
Good luck. Good luck. I don’t want good luck.
I want God almighty behind the yoke of that plane. I want to be the co pilot of the moment.
I want God to be leading it and you take off and you’re up there.
And after about, I don’t know how long the butterflies are not flying as much and you begin to realize, you know what I’ve been well trained.
I’ve been well trained when you come around and you land alone for the first time.
There’s this incredible sigh of relief.
You know what I can do this, I can’t believe that I can do this.
That feeling the apostles, the disciples had to have felt something like that with what we’re going to see right now.
Luke chapter nine verse one starting there. Follow along with me.
Then he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases.
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
And he said to them, take nothing for the journey, neither stabs nor bag, nor bread, nor money and do not have two tunics apiece, whatever house you enter, stay there and from there, depart and wherever you will not be received.
When you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.
So they departed and went through the towns preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.
Now, Herod the tetra heard of all that was done by him.
That is Jesus and he was perplexed because he was because it was said by some that John that is John, the Baptist had been risen from the dead.
Some said that it was Elijah that had appeared and by others, it was said that one of the prophets had risen again.
Herod said, John, I have beheaded, but who is this? Of whom? I hear such things?
And so he that is Herod sought to see Jesus. Jesus had been tutoring the disciples for quite a while.
Now. They had been taking off together, going around and landing together.
Jesus was ministering and they were assisting yet all the while as Jesus was doing what he was doing, they knowingly or unknowingly were picking up the habits of the messiah.
I think that’s awesome. There’s one thing about studying and knowing things in your head, that’s a quite different thing than it is to get out and to do those things.
And Jesus has got those disciples on the verge of doing those things.
They could have maybe preached a message about how to minister.
They probably could have, they heard him enough, but could they do it?
Could they get out and do it? And you’ve got to remember who these guys are.
# 1, at this point in time, they are, they’re not filled with the Holy Spirit.
At this point in time, church, they have no Bible.
They have the Old Testament, but they don’t have the New Testament at this point in time.
They’re not quite exactly sure what’s going on from one moment to the next.
They’re very excited and they see Jesus fulfilling the word of God and then the next day they’ve got doubts and we’re often like that as well.
But the time had come for these guys to grow up and to become men of God and men in the spirit point.
Number one, what a message we have in Jesus is what we’re learning and look at verses one and two.
It’s a message that is ordained by God and I want you to jot that down and find comfort in it.
Thank God. The message that you and I are told to go out and tell the world is not our own message.
Aren’t you glad about that? I got to tell you, I’m so glad about that.
We are to preach and to give and to live and to share with our friends and family and all those that are around us.
A message ordained by God because it’s his, it’s not ours.
And the first thing that we see right here is a message ordained by God is that it’s ordained to be fully effective Christian in your lap is the message of God and it is fully, fully effective.
It’s not weak at all. This efficiency of the scripture is perfect.
Verse one, it says, then he called his 12 disciples together and gave them power and authority.
So he ordained them to effectiveness.
You need to remember that what God has called you and I to do is not to fail.
Now church listen carefully to this. Don’t misunderstand me church.
I want to ask you do ministries come and go, do churches start and fail, do things get going and then maybe it’s 10 years or 50 years or 100 years.
A work of God ebbs and flows or winds up beginning and ending. Yes, it does. Those things happen.
Sometimes God’s done with it. It served its purpose. Sometimes men destroy it because they get goofy.
But here’s the awesome thing, the message never changes and God will get his message across, listen with or without us.
I want him to do it with us. Amen. I don’t want him to pass us by.
And so we want to be ready.
The disciples are going to find out what it is like to be fully effective for the kingdom of God and church.
Listen, if you’re not listening carefully, you can X yourself right out of this message thinking that ministry is reserved for people who we pay to go do ministry wrong ministry.
For those super Christians wrong. Again, there are no super Christians ministry is for somebody else.
It’s, it’s for the person to the right of me. It’s for the person to the left of me. No.
Are you a Christian? If you say yes, then you and I are ministers together in the cause of Christ, there is no neutral ground.
You’re either a Christian and your life is showing an example and pointing others to Christ to some degree or another or you’re not.
It’s amazing. And we’ve been learning all about that but the gospel that God has given us is fully effective.
Notice this, he called us. He called them to himself that as Jesus brought them the invitation that they would exist or minister or be with him.
Secondly, he gave them power so he invited them, he gave them power.
Jesus handed them as it were that power of the Kingdom of God so that they could get the task done by the way, that word power is that famous Dous or where we get the word dynamite or dynamic.
It means to be full of power. I love that Jesus gives them power to go do this.
He doesn’t give them sort of power. He doesn’t give them kind of power.
But we learned last week that he gives them super power.
This superpower from God that is listen, it is linked to the message of Christ.
The message of the Bible from Old, the New Testament is a message of power, a power to love those that might hate you a power to reach out to those who listen, you may not even want them in heaven, but God gives you the power to reach out to them and to share Christ with them to love them.
The word power is that God has built into the scripture.
It’s in the Bible, DNA that it would be effectual. It’s amazing to me and then he gave them authority.
This is an amazing word authority. The word means that in the Greek that Jesus Jesus gave them the right.
The word authority is the right to use that power. Are you a Christian this morning?
God has invited you to go out into the world and He’s giving you the power to do that and He’s given you the right to do it.
If somebody comes up to you and says, what gives you the right to preach the gospel, you know what your answer is church, please don’t feel when they ask you this, who gave you that authority answer?
Jesus Christ. Did the Bible says it right here in Luke chapter nine, Jesus did, where were you ordained?
Listen God ordains. Yes. Yes. I know that ministries and universities and seminaries ordain people.
Do you understand though that it is supposed to be the school or the ministry or that seminary’s agreement with God that the person is called?
Did you hear that you can graduate from seminary with a phd?
You can graduate with a doctorate, a master’s or whatever it is, you can be the most skilled orator in your class.
But that doesn’t mean God called you to do the ministry in an ordained sense as God would say, yeah, but I got my degree and I got my ordination.
But did God ordain you into the ministry is the big question and here is the glorious and wonderful answer in my opinion is it, is this, if you are willing to follow the Lord and to serve the Lord, he will ordain you to a task, he will ordain you to a call, it could be an encouragement ministry.
It could be that you are one who administrates, it could be whatever God does the ordaining men to recognize that, but whatever it’s fully effective.
And so he gives them the authority or the right to manifest the kingdom. Work in our lives.
Hebrews chapter four verse 12 says for the word of God is living and powerful. I love that.
That’s why when you take your bible and you go home or you go to breakfast this morning and you set your bible on the restaurant table, especially if it says like, you know, holy bible on the, on the front, the waiter or waitress is going to look at it and say, wow, what’s that?
It’s the word of God now, watch out Now it’s powerful and live.
It’s, it’s alive, it changes people’s lives. It’s for real.
He says in hebrews 412 that the word of God is living and powerful sharper than any to its sword.
That means it gets down into the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Remember that?
Because he’s going to wrestle with God’s word. Why?
Because it gets down into the heart into the thought of the matter.
He says that it goes down to the place of the piercing, even between the division of the soul and the spirit.
Yes, there’s a difference between the soul and the spirit.
The spirit is what lives forever in heaven or hell and the soul is your mind. It’s the Greek word.
Sukey, psychology, the science or study of the mind.
But the spirit and the soul are two different things and the Bible gets down in between it and divides it.
Are you born again? How do you think?
Do you know God or do you not the Bible discerns that and speaks to us about that.
And then also it says that it divides between the joints and the marrow and the discerning of our thoughts and the intentions of our hearts.
The Bible does and of course, Isaiah 55 10 and 11, it says for as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven falls and does not return there but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud that it may give so seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
So shall my word? That is God’s bible that goes forth from my mouth.
It shall not return to any void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it will prosper in that thing for which I have sent it.
That means if you share Jesus with somebody, God and the power of God is behind it, you’re not alone.
I’m scared to share Jesus, share Jesus and watch what happens.
But if I do that, I’m going to be solo. Listen, you won’t be solo.
There’s an instructor with you, Jesus said he’s the Holy Spirit and he’s not going to leave you.
Can you guys hear me? I need, I look, I’m excited about this message.
You got to get excited if you not fake it.
But God is telling us if a moment, we don’t raise our hands open, raise the Lord.
I’m a Christian. Then Jesus is going to be telling us in a moment.
Then get out there and spread the kingdom. But I’m scared he’s already signed your logbook. You can go.
But I don’t know what that what if I go, you will not fall.
You’re not going to fail. God gives us his word. We need to let it go.
John 14 12. Listen to what the scripture says in John 14 12, Jesus was speaking.
He said most assuredly I say to you and I hope you understand that to me and you, he who believes in me and the works that I do will do also and greater works than these will they do?
Because I go to the Father Jesus is saying that every believer has the opportunity to do greater works than he did himself.
He said, Jack, I never raised anybody from the dead. He didn’t ask you to raise somebody from the dead.
Exactly. He told you to go and share the gospel. That’s what we do. And that’s a greater work.
The calling comes with equipping. It’s got everything there.
The equipping is the power and the authority that God has given to his believers. It’s beautiful here.
Luke uses the word to that he gives that Jesus gives this power.
Luke uses the word in the Greek that means to bestow, listen to this.
Jesus says to them in giving them the power and the authority.
It means to bestow upon them, to place the hand upon them to convey or to communicate authority and power.
It means to act as a king to crown a knight. I love that.
Jesus is saying, all right, you guys, I’ve crowned you or I’ve knighted you into the service of the kingdom.
I love that thinking. And so as a Christian, you and I have been called to go out and to serve Christ through this amazing thing of living and preaching the gospel.
And as a Christian, we all have different concerns. Personally, you might have a concern to see people comforted.
Did you know God’s called you to do that?
He said, well, how do I know if I’m called to do something?
If I’m a, if I’m a believer, how do I know if I’m called to do something?
Well, what do you care about? What do you really care about? Is it spread in the gospel?
Then you have the heart of an evangelist. Is it comforting those that are sick?
God has given you that kindness and that mercy. What is it in your life? Now?
Listen, Christian don’t answer but whatever it is in your life, ask yourself this next question.
Am I doing that thing that I would love to do for God?
Ask yourself that, that am I doing that thing?
And only you can answer that only I, I can answer that for me personally, I have an absolute burning passion to see people know the Bible.
Um Outside of that, there’s not much if somebody comes in for counseling for me.
I listen to them and when they’re done 55 minutes they’ll talk for 55 minutes.
The appointment’s for an hour, they’ll talk for 55 minutes.
And in five minutes I give them the verses that they need. You.
See, other than how I counseling to me, I didn’t say I was a counselor.
My passion is to teach the word of God.
There are those that have the awesome gift of being a counselor and they’re amazing at it and they’re fantastic at it.
I’m not so good at it, but I’ll give you the Bible and I know what part of the Bible to give you.
Why? Because I love being a student of the Bible. That’s my thing to give the word of God.
So, what am I doing? You guys right now? It’s terrifying.
But it’s like flying the airplane for the first time, every Sunday, every Wednesday, Sunday night as we’ll get together tonight.
Wherever I’m speaking, I’m terrified, but I can’t wait to get behind the wheel or the cockpit of the Bible.
Do you understand? I’m saying? You got to do it.
Pastor and Bible teacher Jack Hibbs here on real life radio with his message called, what a message we have in Jesus.
You know, this teaching today is part of Pastor Jack’s series called The Gospel of Luke.
It’s a series on the book of Luke and the unveiling of Jesus Christ to this World.
And we’ll continue on the next edition of Real Life Radio. Hey, everybody, Pastor Jack here.
And I want to let you guys in on something. We literally brought a book back to life.
We resurrected a book that was out of print for your junior higher high schooler and your college age kid.
You’ve got to get a copy of Dr A E Wilder Smith’s book titled He who thinks has to believe.
So, mom and dad, grandma and grandpa listen to this, get this book, your kid, junior high, high school, college age kid, because as they get into this book and they’re going to want to get into it, it’s fascinating.
They’re going to love it, sit down with them, read it with them. Watch what happens.
Their world is being rocked and you need to infuse truth into their life with this great book.
Once again, don’t miss it, don’t miss it.
He who thinks has to believe.
