Learning Joy from Jesus

Sermon Transcript

For as long as this church has been here, we’ve always had a steady stream of medical students, residents, and fellows. At each step of their training, they seem to be thinking about acceptance and rejection. When they were undergraduate students they wondered if any medical school would accept them, and if so, which. As medical students they make their list of residency preferences, and wonder what residences will accept them, and which will reject them. Then sometimes there’s fellowship. Then sometimes there’s another fellowship. Then there’s the job after fellowship. Amid all that, for many there are visa applications that can be accepted or rejected. And for most, joy correlates with acceptance, while sorrow correlates with rejection. Of course, this is also true beyond medicine: We tend to rejoice when accepted, but despair when rejected.

 

In the passage of Luke on which we are focusing today, though, despair is absent, even while rejection is present. As we come to chapter 10 of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has just taught clearly on a couple difficult aspects of following him. He showed us that following him means some, even many, will reject you, and he taught us that we must never retaliate when rejected. Then he showed various other would-be disciples that following him would require them to renounce everything–earthly securities, family responsibilities, relationships with the ones they love would all have to be given a place of secondary importance under him. To deprioritize all that sounds like a miserable existence to some, but in this passage, we find rejoicing. We find Jesus himself rejoicing, and we see glorious reasons Jesus gives us to rejoice. On Jesus’ mission, we will face both acceptance and rejection, and yet, on Jesus’ mission, you can rejoice through both acceptance and rejection. How? Prepare for both, rejoice in your salvation more than your success, rejoice in God’s plan, and remember your privileges.

 

Prepare for both

 

Our passage today begins with the Lord appointing seventy-two others and sending them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. The seventy-two are called “others” because he’d already appointed twelve of his disciples to be apostles earlier in his ministry; these seventy-two were a different group, sent out on a specific mission: To go to the towns Jesus was about to enter on his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. That trip would take multiple days, so there were various towns at which Jesus would stop and lodge on his way there. Before he arrived at them, though, he sent these seventy-two ahead to give the towns a little preview of what was to come. In verse 9 we read that he told them to do the two basic things he did in every town to which he went: Heal and proclaim. Heal the sick, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”

 

And he prepared his disciples for what kind of reception they would receive. First, he gave them great hope that their ministry would bear fruit. He began his speech to them with these words in verse 2: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Later in the passage he refers to a “son of peace” in verse 6. If you’ve been around global missions conversations you’ve maybe heard people talk about the importance of finding a “person of peace,” which according to them would be an unbeliever who nonetheless gives you access to the community you’re trying to reach. That’s not a biblical concept, nor what this passage is talking about. Here a son of peace is like the children of wisdom Jesus referenced in Luke 7 who recognize him as the Christ or like Simeon and Anna early in Luke’s Gospel who were waiting for the consolation of Israel. They are Israelites who were converted under the Old Covenant, and who were therefore ready to receive the Messiah now that he’d come. The harvest is plentiful because Jesus knows there are many such persons scattered throughout the towns of Israel, just waiting for someone to come and say, “He’s here.” 

 

And for slightly different but related reasons, we can still hear Jesus saying today, “The harvest is plentiful.” Later in the book of Acts, the sequel to Luke, the apostle Paul recounts a time when the Lord told him to stay in Corinth because he had many who were his people there (Acts 18:10). In other words, there were many in that city whom the Lord had chosen for eternal life before the foundation of the world, and therefore Paul’s ministry there had hope of fruitfulness. God hasn’t told us how many of his people there are in Philadelphia in 2026, but in a city with a million and a half people, we have good reason to believe there are more, and that not all of them have yet heard the gospel and been saved. God has told us that Jesus Christ shed his blood for people from every tribe and language and people and nation (Rev 5:9), and we know both that all those for whom he shed his blood will come to him (John 6:37), and that not every tribe and language and people and nation has yet heard of him. Today, then, both in Philadelphia and throughout the world, the harvest is plentiful. The headlines may say Christianity is in decline in the West, but the word of Christ still stands: The harvest is plentiful.

 

It’s the laborers who are few, those who go out to proclaim his gospel and do good works that adorn it. Jesus started with twelve such laborers, but they were too few, so this time he sent out seventy-two, and even with the seventy-two sent, Jesus said the laborers were few. I can tell you today that just as it’s still true that the harvest is plentiful, it is still true that the laborers are few. There are countless churches just in this country who do not have a pastor set apart to preach the word–right in our area Redemption City Church down the street and Trinity Community Church in Abington come to mind. Add to that countless international churches, and all the language groups that still have no church among them, and we should feel the weight of just how few the laborers are compared to the harvest. We have the money, we have the training organizations, we have the sending agencies–it’s the laborers who are few.

 

What, then, are we to do? Well, Jesus tells us in verse 2: Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. He’s sending these seventy-two laborers, and their first labor is to pray earnestly for more laborers. They aren’t even just to pray; they’re to pray earnestly for this. And we pray for this because our Lord is the Lord of the harvest. It’s his harvest. He chose a people from before the foundation of the world, he sent his Son to shed his blood for them, he will send his Spirit to regenerate them, and therefore it’s ultimately on him to provide the necessary means, to provide the laborers, through whose word his people will be brought to faith. Let praying for more laborers be a regular part of your prayers brothers and sisters. Pray for it once and you may see little fruit. But pray for it weekly, pray for it earnestly, for decades, and do you think the Lord of the harvest might then send out more laborers into his harvest? When we know the harvest is plentiful, when we expect there is more fruit out there to be harvested, it should make us earnest to pray for more laborers. That’s one way we prepare for acceptance on Jesus’ mission.

 

Later in the text Jesus explicitly instructs the seventy-two on what to do when they are accepted. He tells them to remain in the house, heal, proclaim the gospel, and eat and drink whatever the host provides, because the laborer deserves his wages. This is why we pay pastors and missionaries. But he also prepares them for rejection. Even at the beginning he says he’s sending them out as lambs in the midst of wolves. I don’t know much about what it’s like to be a lamb, but I’m guessing if you’re a lamb, the one place you don’t want to go is into the midst of wolves. Yet Jesus says that’s where he’s sending his people. Think about what he’s sending us out to do: To do good works, and to proclaim good news. If people reject that, though, what can we really do to them? Remember last week we saw that John tried to call down fire from heaven on them, and Jesus rebuked him. Instead, he told us to love our enemies, to pray for those who abuse us, and to offer our other cheek to anyone who slaps us. Jesus’ people go out like lambs, but it’s not like the world around us is made up of lambs! Jesus teaches us to expect that if we really follow him, there will be some who don’t like that, and they don’t have a Lord rebuking them for trying to call down fire from heaven, or a Lord who requires that they love their enemies. 

 

So he prepares the seventy-two not only for acceptance, but for rejection. He says in verse 10 whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets, announce that you’re wiping the dust off your feet, and tell them that the kingdom of God has come near. That’s the same basic thing he told the twelve to do when he sent them out back in chapter 9; it was a way of visually representing that even the dust of the ground in that town was under God’s curse. And it’s precisely because the kingdom came near that their judgment would be so severe. Jesus says in verse 12 that it will be even more bearable on the day of judgment for Sodom than for that town. Sodom was one of the most notoriously wicked cities in the Bible–it was condemned for sexual immorality, a lack of hospitality, and a failure to care for the poor (Ezekiel 16:49, Jude 7). If you’ve ever heard the phrase “brimstone and fire,” it comes from an old translation of the fire that God rained down from the skies to destroy the city of Sodom in judgment on its wickedness. Yet here Jesus says that in the final day of judgment, it will go better for Sodom than for any town that rejects his disciples when they brought the kingdom of God so near to them.

 

Jesus then pronounces that very curse on many cities to which he had already gone: Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum. There were cities that had seen the incarnate Christ, who had seen his mighty works–making a paralyzed man walk, casting out demons, even raising the dead, and yet so many in those towns still did not repent and follow Jesus. Now, if even Jesus himself faced rejection after performing all those mighty works, don’t you think we too should expect rejection? But here’s why we can still rejoice; here’s how Jesus prepares us for both acceptance and rejection, verse 16: The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me. Jesus is saying that just as Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum are cursed because they rejected him, so any town that rejects his laborers will be cursed.

 

So when we are rejected, we can still rejoice without retaliating, because we know that in the end, God will render a just sentence of judgment. We don’t have to fear rejection, because we know ultimately, if we are proclaiming the word of Christ, the people who reject us aren’t rejecting us–they’re rejecting Jesus, and with him, they are rejecting the one who sent him. When we make our mission about how people feel about us we’re overly inflated by acceptance, and overly crushed by rejection. Furthermore, we’re prone to change the message to increase the odds of people accepting it. But when we just let it be about Jesus, and function instead as his messengers, we can rejoice in him even in the face of rejection. And even our rejoicing in acceptance is different. It goes from the petty pleasure of, “Oh wow; you like me,” to the joy of, “Oh wow; you’ve accepted Jesus.” 

 

Yet even with acceptance there is a danger, so let’s look at the next way we can rejoice through both acceptance and rejection: Rejoice in your salvation more than your success.

 

Rejoice in your salvation more than your success

 

So even though Jesus is very intentional to prepare his disciples for both acceptance and rejection, and ends his speech to them with an emphasis on rejection, we read in verse 17 that after going out on their mission, they returned with joy. And they reveal the cause of their joy when they say in verse 17 that even the demons are subject to them in Jesus’ name! Jesus had apparently given them a similar authority he gave the apostles earlier, to heal disease and cast out demons (Luke 9:1). So they found that when they operated by the authority of Jesus, and cast out demons in his name, the demons obeyed them! If one of my kids tells another to do something, that doesn’t necessarily carry much weight. But if I send them and they say, “Dad wants you to come to the living room,” that’s different. So here, these disciples have no authority of their own, but when they cast out demons in Jesus’ name, the name above all names, the demons obey.

 

Now you can imagine what joy that would bring you. Demons oppressed people; we saw a couple weeks ago how it convulsed someone, threw him to the ground, shattered him even. For most these demons were intractable; we even read of a demon Jesus’ disciples could not cast out (Luke 9:40). But now these disciples go out, they speak in Jesus’ name, and find the demons are subject to them. Talk about visible results: One moment the person is possessed; the next they are free. 

 

But Jesus responds and says first that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. There are two major interpretations of this statement from Jesus: One is that this refers to Satan’s original fall, when because of his pride, God cast him out from heaven. It could then serve as a warning against pride to the disciples, or help them see that the spirits being subject to them in Jesus’ name is small in comparison to what Jesus has seen. The other option is that Jesus is referring to what he was seeing as the seventy-two went out. In this view, Satan was allowed some kind of influence even in the heavenly courts, which we can see in a place like Job, for a time, but with Jesus’ incarnation and sending of the seventy-two, Jesus saw Satan being permanently cast down from heaven and progressively evicted from the land as his disciples cast out demons. I’m torn between the two, though as of today I slightly prefer the latter. The point, then, is that Jesus is affirming the significance of what is happening: Satan is being cast down, and he goes on to affirm the authority he gave these seventy-two, an authority over all the power of the enemy, he says.

 

And yet, he follows that up in verse 20 by saying, “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” First, there’s a prohibition: Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you. He doesn’t forbid them from rejoicing that people were healed; that is, of course, a good thing, and something for which we should give God glory. But he prohibits them from rejoicing that spirits are subject to them. If someone is converted, if someone grows to greater maturity in Christ, if a marriage is restored, if a wayward member repents–these are the sorts of things that should cause us to rejoice, but we should not rejoice because it happened through us. If the same thing happened through a different Christian or even a different church, our rejoicing should be no different. Recall how Jesus rebuked John because John was concerned about someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name who wasn’t one of them. Now these disciples rejoice because the demons are this time subject to them. But Jesus says don’t do it.

 

Why not? Well look at what he says in verse 19: I have given you authority. Whatever authority these disciples had was not their own doing; Jesus gave it to them. And if any spiritual good comes to anyone’s life through us, we can be sure that it was not our doing; it was Jesus’. So the apostle Paul writes, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:5-7). And if we are not to rejoice in our spiritual successes because they are ours, how much less should we rejoice in our worldly successes because they are ours. Gratitude for worldly success is certainly right and good, even necessary, but there is a distinction both subtle and meaningful between that and a proud rejoicing that says “Look what I did” in the heart, even if not with the words. Do not rejoice in these things, brothers and sisters.

 

But do rejoice! Jesus is not anti-joy; we’ll see him rejoicing exuberantly in just a moment. And here he commands us to rejoice. To refuse to rejoice is no less disobedient to Jesus than murder, adultery, or theft. He says rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Why should we rejoice in that?

 

The first reason we should rejoice that our names are written in heaven is because they justly could have been written in hell! God made us, we did not make him. He owes us nothing, but as our creator is free to do with us as he pleases. Furthermore, we have sinned against him, and continue to sin against him daily. We do not love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, nor do we love our neighbor as ourselves, though these commandments are simple and utterly reasonable. And he is perfect in holiness, righteousness, and justice. If you invited someone to your home, and they came in, ate your food, destroyed your appliances, and harmed your family, wouldn’t we think you justified if you went to the police, and never invited them over again? So God would be totally justified to cast us out of heaven forever, and execute the just sentence of condemnation on us. He’d be totally justified to write our names in hell, and yet, our names are written in heaven. If so much as one name is written in heaven, it is one more than deserves it.

 

The second reason we should rejoice that our names are written in heaven is because God did all the work to put our names there. Our flesh is no less sinful than the worst sinner in hell today, and yet there they are, while our names are written in heaven. Why? Because before the foundation of the world, according to his good pleasure, unconditional of anything foreseen in us, God chose to save some for his glory. We didn’t have anything to do with that. And then in time he sent forth his Son, to become man, this Jesus who spoke these words, and who then lived a life of perfect obedience to God, but died on the cross to suffer the judgment we deserved, and rose again to receive the eternal life we need but could never attain ourselves. We didn’t have anything to do with that either. And then in our lives God sent forth his Spirit, to cause us to be born again, so that we would respond in faith to the gospel message. And once again, we didn’t have anything to do with that. You say, “Well I did repent and believe,” but where did that repentance and faith come from? Why’d you repent and believe, while so many do not? Scripture is clear that even repentance is a gift that God grants (Acts 11:18, 2 Timothy 2:25). We rejoice that our names are written in heaven because God has done all the work to get them there.

 

Third, we rejoice that our names are written in heaven because our names are written in heaven. As we often sing, heaven is the place where sickness, sorrow, pain, and death are felt and feared no more. As Edwards called it, heaven is the world of perfect love. It is that place where we will finally be free from all our sins, and free even from the struggle against sin. It is the place where we will rest from our works. It is the place where the Lord himself will wipe away every tear from our eyes. It is the place where our bodies will function just as they were created to function. It is the place where our love for one another will be perfected, and the Lord’s people will finally be one. But most importantly, it is the place where we will see Jesus as he is, and dwell with him forever. It is the place where faith will give way to sight, hope will be fully satisfied, and love will be perfected. It is the place we will finally see the glory of Christ in its fullness, and want nothing else. It is the place where we will have fullness of joy in his presence, and pleasures at his right hand forevermore. It is so glorious, that a moment there will render all the trials of the present age light and momentary in comparison, and our names…are written…there.

 

Fourth and finally, we rejoice that our names are written in heaven because if our names are written there, it guarantees that we will be there. Those God chose, God saves, and those God saves, God keeps. “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom 8:30). We thank God for the health of our bodies as he gives it, but we know that one day, something’s going to get us. The Lord gives, and one day, the Lord will take the health of our bodies away. So don’t rejoice in that. Sometimes the Lord gives success, and we too feel that even the demons are subject to us. Other times he takes it away, and we see little fruit from our labors. So don’t rejoice in that. Rejoice, rather, that your name is written in heaven, because that will never be taken from you. 

 

I wonder if you know today whether your name is written in heaven. One obvious implication of this text is that you can know that; if you couldn’t, then you wouldn’t be able to rejoice in it. It’s not the kind of thing you can simply assume, though. Not everyone’s name is written in heaven; hell has a population greater than zero. In fact, Jesus himself tells us that many will be there (Matt 7:13), even some who called him Lord (Matt 7:21-23). How can you know that your name is written in heaven? Ultimately, you can only know that through repentance and faith in Jesus. If you are still setting your hopes before God on your own goodness, your own “Well I have always tried to be good” resume, you have no reason to assume your name is written in heaven. The resume of your life contains only the reasons God should send you to hell. Your only hope for heaven is the resume of Jesus Christ–his perfect life, his death, his resurrection. Trust in him, and you can know that your name is written in heaven. 

 

And if you know that today, rejoice in it. Rejoice in it more than any success, and you will be able to rejoice whether you face acceptance or rejection. And next, rejoice in God’s plan.

 

Rejoice in God’s plan (v. 21-22)

 

In verse 21 we read that not only did Jesus tell his disciples to rejoice, but in that same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. The word for rejoicing there even connotes a kind of exuberance, like Jesus is thrilled. And we’re told this rejoicing was in the Holy Spirit. That’s one of the evidences that the Holy Spirit is in you and your name is written in heaven: He produces joy in you, joy in your salvation especially, and here we see also, joy in God’s plan. Look at what he says.

 

“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.” So even in the face of rejection, why can Jesus rejoice? He can rejoice because even rejection is not outside God’s sovereign plan. It’s not as though God is trying his hardest to win everyone and then getting frustrated when it turns out some reject him, like I get frustrated when the Sixers miss a shot or the other team scores during a basketball game I hope they win. You might think God would be especially concerned if it’s the wise and understanding rejecting the gospel. If you’re trying to start a movement, wouldn’t you want them on your team? Yet Jesus is not anxious about that. He’s full of joy, and he thanks God for it, because he recognizes that God is the very one hiding these things from the wise and understanding.

 

Jesus doesn’t rejoice that the wise and understanding are perishing in their sins; he laments anytime that happens (Ezek 33:11, Luke 13:34). But he rejoices that even when God is rejected, God is still sovereign, and his plan is still wise. Rather than gratifying the pride of the wise and understanding, God hides the gospel from them, so that they won’t be able to boast of their salvation and say, “Ah see; we figured it out.” Instead, he reveals it to little children. There little children doesn’t literally mean God only reveals the gospel to humans under the age of 10 or something, though he certainly does sometimes reveal the gospel to such humans. Little children here refers to the humble, those who Jesus later in Luke says receive the kingdom “like a child” (Luke 18:17), with simple faith, and with no sense that they are entitled to it. It’s those who know they don’t know, those who know their need, to whom God reveals the gospel, and Jesus says this was his Father’s gracious will.

 

In other words, why did God choose to hide the gospel from the wise and understanding and reveal it to the humble? Because he wanted to. Why did he want to? Later scripture does elucidate that further, but there’s a real sense in which once we get to God’s gracious will as an explanation, we’ve hit the bottom of explanation. There is no force or principle outside of God that constrains or determines God’s will. As Psalm 115:3 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” Can you be content with that explanation? Why is this person saved, and that person not? Why did this person reject the gospel, and this one accept it? Again, a lot of ways to answer that, but ultimately, we land here: “Such was your gracious will.” 

 

On the one hand, this should temper our response to rejection. We should grieve for someone’s soul anytime they reject the gospel, especially when it’s someone we love, but we should never then be angry with the Lord about that. As much as we may and should desire the salvation of a family member or friend, we must recognize that it is ultimately in God’s hands whether the gospel is hidden or revealed to them. And when someone is saved, it should lead us to great rejoicing! We don’t just rejoice that our names are written in heaven; we rejoice anytime we discover that another name is written in heaven! If anyone comes to faith in Christ, it can only be because the Lord has revealed the gospel to them, not because the person who evangelized them is so gifted, or the church that reached them so strategic. 

 

Jesus strengthens that sense in verse 22 when he clarifies how God executes his plan: The Father has given all things to the Son, such that now, the only way anyone can know the Father is if the Son chooses to reveal it to them. That’s why we rejoice when he does, and that’s why we can still rejoice, even when he doesn’t. In either case, his sovereign will is done, and we can trust him. 

 

And finally, on Jesus’ mission we can rejoice amid both acceptance and rejection by remembering our privileges.

 

Remember your privileges

 

So after rejoicing in the Holy Spirit, Jesus turns to his disciples privately, verse 23 says, and calls their eyes blessed for seeing what they see, since many prophets and kings desired to see the things they see, and hear the things they hear, but did not see or hear them in their own day. Having just rejoiced himself in what God has revealed to these little children, Jesus’ disciples, these common, uneducated men, Jesus now wants to make sure they see just what a privilege it is that God has revealed these things to them.

 

To the Jews of the day, the prophets and kings of old were the privileged ones. These disciples of Jesus were just ordinary Israelites, little children even. In my personal Bible reading my reading plan has had me in 1 Kings recently, where I’m reading about King Solomon. In his time we read that his eyes saw 666 talents of gold in his possession, which comes to about 25 tons today, worth over $1.6 billion at the current gold rates. “The king also made a great ivory throne and overlaid it with the finest gold. 19 The throne had six steps, and the throne had a round top, and on each side of the seat were armrests and two lions standing beside the armrests, 20 while twelve lions stood there, one on each end of a step on the six steps. The like of it was never made in any kingdom. 21 All King Solomon’s drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None were of silver; silver was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon. 22 For the king had a fleet of ships of Tarshish at sea with the fleet of Hiram. Once every three years the fleet of ships of Tarshish used to come bringing gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks” (1 Kings 10:18-22). On top of all the wealth, he had his own little supply of apes and peacocks. Oh and he has his share of women too: 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). How many today hear that description and say, “Man; those are the privileges I want”?

 

Yet Jesus says Solomon is just one of those kings who longed to see something else, something else that those seventy-two actually got to see. All the prophets and kings in Israel’s history longed to see the Christ, the promised savior, who would usher in a new age, an age in which sins would be forgiven, relationship with God would be restored, the blind would see, the captives would be set free, Satan would be thrown down like lightning, and the nations would be united under one good, just, and kind king. They longed to see that king in his kingdom, and they longed to hear the good news of that kingdom’s coming. So Jesus says to his disciples, “That’s what you’re seeing now, and that’s the good news you have heard from me.” 

 

And though we have not seen Jesus, nor do we see him now, we have heard even more than those seventy-two heard that day, and we see his kingdom advancing still to this day, now on the other side of the globe from the towns to which Jesus sent these seventy-two. Even in this church we’ve seen him save and gather people whose ancestry goes back to Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, and some who even grew up in these places. And we’ve heard not only that the kingdom of God has come near, but we’ve heard the good news of the death, resurrection, and ascension of the king. We’ve heard the good news of his present reign, and of his second coming, when we will see him, and for which we now long. 

 

Do you see the incredible privilege we have, then? It’s hard for us to imagine what it would have been like to be a prophet or king before the time of Christ, who may have had great material wealth, but who was left in a sad and doubting condition regarding their standing with God, who saw God’s trinitarian identity only dimly, who had to look through animal sacrifices to put faith in the sacrifice yet to come, and who hoped for eternal life when no one had yet risen from the dead. Imagine now what it would be like to live among the various unreached language groups of the world who have not heard the gospel, to know deep down that you are a creature of God who has sinned against him, but to be stuck suppressing that truth, and to be without the faintest idea of how to be saved before you appear before him for judgment. 

 

One of the great evidences of our fallenness is how lightly and inaccurately we esteem our privileges. We live under the light of the gospel, Jesus has even chosen to open our eyes and reveal it to many of us in a saving way, and yet we grumble because we don’t have a bigger house, a better job, or better health. It’s not only wrong; it’s sad. There is such joy available to us, and yet we often live so far beneath it. Don’t let the cares of this life choke out this joy. Remember your privileges.

As we participate in Jesus’ mission, we should expect both acceptance and rejection. The harvest is plentiful–God has chosen people for salvation, Jesus has shed his blood for them, and it is his gracious will to reveal the gospel to little children. So we expect acceptance of the gospel, and we pray fervently for more laborers to take the gospel to the end of the earth. When we see people converted and kept for heaven, we rejoice, not because we did it, but because we see in it God’s gracious will being accomplished. But we also expect rejection, because we are lambs sent out in the midst of wolves. Yet even in the face of rejection, we rejoice, because God will handle justice in the end, and even rejection of the gospel does not thwart his plan. And in the face of both acceptance and rejection, we rejoice most of all that our names are written in heaven, where we will see the one prophets, kings, and now we, long to see, and rejoice with him forever.