Just a little bit about me before we go forward here. Yeah. My name is Josh Ramirez. I’m the associate pastor at Leroy Chapel. Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you. So good to get to pastor there. Very thankful. I’ve been married for 13 years to my wife Abby. We have three kids, a four year old and twins that just turned one.

A couple things I like to do, I like. Well before kids I ran a lot. So I like running. Just don’t have as much time to do it now. And I love the Word. I’m a student of the Word and just thankful I get to be here to teach a little bit. You guys have been going through, just really just started, I think last week a series on commissioned to make Christ known. And that’s what being an ambassador is, it’s making Christ known. Wherever you go, wherever it might be as a Christian, the Lord has commissioned you to make Christ known. And I’ve been asked this morning to speak on being commissioned with urgency. Being commissioned with a sense of urgency.

This urgency comes with this of sense essence of purpose and direction and not wanting to waste time or waste moments because the mission to make Christ known is an urgent mission. When I think about where Scripture teaches us a sense of this urgency, I am reminded of Christ’s words in Luke chapter 10. So let me read for us. This is Luke chapter 10. If you have a Bible with you, could turn there the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10. And we’re going to be looking at verses 1 through 11, 1 through 12. These are the words that Jesus gave to 72 of his disciples when he commissioned them to make Christ and His gospel known throughout all the towns of Israel.

So learning from Jesus how He sent his disciples out with a sense of urgency to make Christ and His kingdom known and what we can take away from that, and praying that the Lord would give us this sense of urgency as well. So let’s read together. This is Luke chapter 10, beginning with verse 1. After this, the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them on ahead of him two by two into every town and place where He Himself was about to go. Just pause right there in our reading. And it just strikes me that when you’re sent out, commissioned by Christ to make him known, he’s sending you to the places that He Himself intends to go as well. Verse 2. And he said to them, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers into his harvest. Go your way. Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money back, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter first say peace be to this house. And if the Son of Peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you and remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you, heal the sickening, and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you.

But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come here. I tell you, it’ll be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. This is the word of the Lord. Let me pray for us and we’ll dive in. Heavenly Father, I thank you for working in such a way that we can know what your son said, these 72 disciples, when he commissioned them to make the gospel known. And Lord Jesus, I thank you for the faithful laborers who have entered into your harvest throughout the centuries.

So that the gospel might be made known to us today, that we can have it, receive it, believe it, and be commissioned as well. Commissioned as your ambassadors. I pray now that your spirit would help us impress upon us a sense of urgency, the same sense of urgency you gave to your disciples and give us the wisdom to know how to make you known. Well, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Jesus commission here of the 72 to make his gospel known, to make Christ known throughout Israel with urgency. He put this urgency on his disciples by first telling them of a need to make it known. And then he shows them a picture of what urgency could look like. And then he gives them an unusual command, a really unusual command.

So I want us to see the sense of urgency from this need, this picture, and this unusual command. We see the need there in verse 2, where Jesus says to these disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Ever go down, drive in and you see a farm with huge fields and crops. And now in our day, you don’t need a lot of laborers to harvest a big crop. You’ve got giant machines. You get the combine out and that’s going to. That’s going to do a lot of the work for you. Well, they didn’t have that in Jesus Day. And so everything that you harvest would be picked by hand. And that takes a lot of work. Just imagine having acres and acres of corn or grain, green beans, apples. Has anyone gone apple picking? It’s pretty fun.

Imagine going to an orchard and you’re the only one who’s been commissioned to pick every single apple off the trees. That’s a lot of work. And I think that would give you a sense of urgency to say there’s so much work to do and there’s not a whole lot of us doing the work. And I could see all the apples there, and they need to be picked before they get rotten and fall to the ground. That’s the idea here. The harvest is plentiful. Jesus says, the people who need to hear this word of Christ’s gospel is plentiful. It’s abundant. The orchards are full and ripe. There’s only a few people going out to pick the apples. Sense of urgency, you got to get after it. So much need there that Christ says, pray earnestly. Pray with a sense of urgency.

We could say that the Lord of the harvest would send out laborers. Lord, send more people. It’s too much work for the little bit of us. Jesus had Already sent His 12 apostles, and now he sends 72 more. Because the need is so great. There’s too many apples that are ripe, and if they’re not picked soon, they’ll become rotten and fall. The need is so great. Obviously, our Savior, he’s not talking about apples. He’s talking about people who need to hear the Gospel. Not just to hear it, but to receive it, to be harvested for the kingdom. And there’s a lot of work. I don’t think that need has changed from his day to our day. I think there are still many people.

In fact, the need might be greater because Jesus just sent them to the towns of Israel, one small nation, a long time ago. Now he commissions us to the entire world. The field has just gotten so much bigger. Therefore, the need for laborers has gotten bigger as well. That’s the need. And there’s that sense of urgency. There’s so much work to do, so little time to do it, so few people to do the work. Get after it, get after it. And then he gives us this picture. Verse 3. Go, go your way. Go out into this harvest. Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Man, what a picture. What a picture. Just think about the urgency there. All right, now, we have wide range of ages here. Who likes to play tag?

All right, I’m guessing more people on this side of the room might like to play tag than on this side of the room. But when you were that age, you probably liked to play tag. I loved playing tag. It might have been because I was just a little bit faster than most of my friends and I could get away without being tagged. But the ones who were faster than me, they were the ones I had to watch out for. I had to keep an eye on them because they could catch up and tag me. Now, tag is fun. All you need is some friends, warm enough weather, classmates, and you go outside, and you need a little bit of stamina. It’s a fun game. And when you’re really competitive, you end up running with urgency because you don’t want to be tagged.

And what happens if you’re tagged? You’re out. You lose. Well, let’s up the ante a little bit. Who here likes paintball? Does anyone get to play paintball? Paintball is another fun game, kind of like tag, but with paintball games, let’s say that you are playing capture the flag in a game of paintball or tag. One or the other. Paintball, I think, helps us see the picture here. Let’s say that there’s, you know, 10 people on your team, you gotta capture the flag of the other team. And they all have paintball guns. And you don’t. You’re probably running with a lot of urgency so that you don’t get hit, right? Not even a nerf gun. No weapons at all, just innocent little lands. You go quick because if you’re tagged, it hurts a little bit more than just being attacked by someone hand.

But Jesus raises the stakes more than tag or paintball with this picture. He says, I’m sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves. The stakes are much higher because wolves, they like to eat lamb chops. Now, how fast can lambs move? They can run pretty fast, actually. Lambs on average can run about 20 to 25 miles an hour. That’s faster than most of us here. In fact, if you can run that fast, that’s pretty amazing to have worked towards the Olympics. But wolves, they can run just a little bit faster on average chasing prey. Wolves, they hunt at speeds of 30 miles an hour. And Jesus says, I’m sending you out like that. Do you sense the urgency? Run quick like a lamb being chased by a wolf. Don’t get tagged. You need to go fast. There’s a need, a great harvest.

There’s a picture sending you out like lambs. And there’s wolves everywhere. So run and run and get after it. And then he gives us this unusual, very unusual command. Verse 4. Carry no money bag, no knapsack, no sandals. And greet no one on the road. Rude. Greet no one on the road. I grew up in California, and life in California is a little bit different than life in Ohio. The pace of life is a little busier. I think some of that is it costs a lot more to live there. And so people work multiple jobs and do lots of stuff just to survive. And what that means is when you’re traveling, let’s say you go on public transportation, you get on a bus or you get on a train, you don’t say hi to anyone, you don’t want to talk to anyone.

That’s not like on mission time for most people. It’s not time to be friendly and get to know new neighbors because most likely you’re working while you’re traveling, or those are your only few moments of quiet in the day to yourself, and you don’t want to talk to anyone. If you go out that way and end up living there, you realize it’s actually rude and considered rude to try to strike up a friendly conversation with someone on the bus. Because life is so Busy. It is not a hospitable kind of environment in that way. Ohio’s a little different where it’s not as busy, where there’s a little bit of a slower pace to life, where it’s actually friendly and kind to say hi to people, to talk to people.

It’s true on this side of the country in the Midwest, and it’s true in the South. I lived in Kentucky for 10 years. It was especially true there. It was a hospitality culture where you go and you get your groceries and if you don’t have like a five minute conversation with the cashier, it’s a little untimed and rude. They want to know your whole life story. Jesus Day was a hospitality culture. It was more like the South. It was more like living in Ohio where the pace of life wasn’t as hurried or quick. So to say hi to no one on the road would have seemed extremely unusual to people that day. Why did my cousin not say hi to me when he saw me on the road? Why did my niece not say hi when she passed by our family?

They didn’t even make eye contact. What’s going on? The urgency here almost bypasses normal human courtesy. Now in Jesus Day, if he would have noticed someone traveling the road and they don’t strike up a conversation, they don’t get involved in some sort of hospitality conversation, you would have perhaps recognized, oh, wait, they’re not being rude. They’ve been sent on a sacred mission. They’ve been sent with a really important duty with really important news, and I can’t stop them. They have to go and be about their mission. That’s the kind of urgency Jesus is getting to his disciples here. The need is so great. You have to go quick, like lambs in the midst of wolves. And it’s so urgent, you can’t pack the normal stuff you would need for a journey. I mean, just think of it.

Carry no money, bag, no knapsack, no sandals. Have you ever traveled anywhere? You have some people traveling today, right, for a missions trip? What do you bring with you? Probably the first couple things you think is, oh, I need my bag, a knapsack to put all my stuff in. I need to wear the right shoes. Are we going to be in the mountains? Are we going to be in the streets? Is it going to be hot? Do I need sandals? Is it going to be cold? Do I need snow boots? Need some money? Those are the three essentials. Your things in your bag, money and the right shoes. Jesus says there’s no time for Any of that. No time to pack your bags. The need is so urgent. Don’t go home and pack. Don’t get the things that you think you need.

Because the need is so urgent, so great. A very unusual command. Now, what might all this say to you here in this room? Has the need for more laborers been met? Has the harvest shrunk, or is it still plentiful? I think the urgency is still placed upon us. There are some changes, definitely. For one thing, you guys don’t have knapsacks in here. That’s a change. Maybe a backpack or something. You’re probably not wearing sandals all year. Life’s a little bit different. A few laborers can harvest a big field with something like a combine. But the need is still there, and it is still urgent. In fact, the need has gotten bigger because again, it’s not just Israel, it’s the whole world now. It’s Ohio, it’s El Salvador, it’s everywhere. Anywhere you can think of. Christ has sent out his ambassadors into the entire world.

So what might it look like in our day to make Christ know with urgency, to carry this sense of urgency with you in this great task, to make Christ known as his ambassadors? What might it be like for you to run like a lamb in the midst of wolves? For you to harvest the orchard as if you’re the only one working it? What might it be like for you to go about as if you didn’t have time to pack the necessary things because the mission was so pressing and urgent? Might not be what you think. It might be less like running around with your hair on fire and more like stopping by someone’s house for a meal and staying there for a long time. Look what he says in verse five. Whatever house you enter, first say, peace be to this house.

And if the Son of Peace is there, your peace will rest on Him. But if not, he’ll return to you. That’s his way of saying, like, give him a friendly greeting. And if they’re friendly back, have a conversation. Go into their home, verse 7. And then remain in that same house. Don’t go from house to house. Stay put. Imagine the need is so urgent. The need is so great. The mission is so necessary. Stay in the same house for a long time. Don’t run around from house to house and try to talk to every single person you could possibly meet. Stay in the same place. Why would Jesus say this if the need really is so great? If the mission is so urgent? How would he say, hey, the first house that welcomes you Stay there. Don’t go anywhere else.

I think.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s because Jesus knew that more mission could be accomplished if one household was fully discipled. Well, if Christ was made fully known in one family, if the depth of a few could reach its fullness, more mission could be accomplished than if many, many households just got a little bit of Jesus. What if making Christ known with urgency looked like bringing a few disciples to maturity rather than making brief contact with thousands and thousands of people? What if peaceful conversations over a meal is more about urgency than heated debates on the streets? What if this urgency looked like witnessing to one person for 30 hours rather than 30 people for one minute? I think that’s what Jesus is applying here. That’s what he sees as urgency. Don’t go from house to house. You won’t get enough accomplished that way.

You won’t make the kingdom known and all that it means to hear the gospel and live into this good news that Christ has come to die for your sins, to set up Christ’s kingdom to transform the world. You won’t be able to know what that’s like if you just spend a few minutes with a thousand people. Spend a thousand minutes with a few people. That’s urgency. And from that house, more laborers could go out. That’s what urgency looks like for us today. Now, these disciples, they got something a little bit different. Jesus gave them, I believe, authority. He says to verse 19, heal the sick in the Gospel of Matthew, even adds, cast out demons. I don’t think we’ve been given that same unique spiritual blessing from the Lord. And yet, boy, we can still care for sick people, can’t we?

Like, we can still try to help out people in need that hasn’t gone away. Jesus still cares about the whole life of a person, both soul and body. We can do a lot more when we care for a few people well. And if all of us do that, a lot of people get met with the gospel of our Lord. Making Christ known with a sense of urgency looks like discipling a few people for a long time. And it also means knowing when to quit, knowing when to move on. Look at verses 10 and 11. Whenever you enter a town and they do not receive, you, go into its streets and say, even the dust of your town, things to our feet will wipe it off against you. Nevertheless, know this, that the kingdom of God has come near you see rejection.

If they were to be rejected by a house, by a town, if they said, we have this great news and we want to bring it to you and we want you to receive it. And we want to stay in your home and disciple you for as long as possible so you can know everything about Jesus. If they say, no, I’m good. I don’t want to hear that. Jesus says, okay, you don’t have to try to fight it. No one to move on now. I don’t think we could take. There’s too much of cultural differences and. And things to say, like we’re supposed to do the same thing and just wipe off our feet when someone says no to the gospel. Yet we can say there’s a time to move on. There’s a time to just say, hey, that’s all right.

You don’t want to hear it right now, that’s cool. I’ll move on. I’m not going to fight you. I’m not going to try to win an argument. I’m not going to try to bang you over the head with the Bible until you finally realize this is what you. There’s a time where it’s time to move on to the next town. And notice this key here, that Jesus wants his disciples to really grasp that when the message is rejected, it doesn’t mean that the message is false. Nevertheless, know this. The kingdom of God has come. Whether it’s received or not, or believed or not, whether you are accepted or rejected, it doesn’t change the fact that this message is real, that the urgency is there. Because the kingdom has come near. Whether people accept it or reject it doesn’t make it true or false.

And I think that is meant to give us much more courage in this mission, courage to go out with urgency that his kingdom has come near, whether or not people accept it. Christ. He has commissioned a 72 way back in that day with this urgent message to make Christ known throughout all of Israel. But when he died, rose again from the dead, made known the fullness of his gospel message that he came to be crucified for sinners. Just as we sang. What a beautiful song. What was the name of the song we sang at the end there? God is love. Who said by someone here. Right. I’ve never heard it before. I mean, I’ve heard that God who’s loved before, but I never heard that song before. Does anyone know who? Renz. Chris Renzema. Sick. I like that song. It’s really good. Yeah.

Christ made that note in his resurrection. And now he has sent all his followers to make this God of love known with urgency. Not just in Israel, not just for the 12 or the 72, but it’s a mission for all his followers to be engaged in, you and me to be engaged in that mission. My encouragement in all this would be to think about who are the few in your life? Who are the few neighbors, friends, family members that you could spend a lot of time with making Christ known and engaging those relationships with a sense of urgency. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. I thank you, Lord, for your word and your commission to us.

I do ask Christ that you would reveal to us who the people are that you have put in front of us, who are the few that you’ve put in front of us to make you known with a sense of urgency. For some of us, it’s easy to know. Lord, I know for me it is lunchtime. Lord, I know for me it is my. My children, they’re a few. Help me engage in discipleship with them urgently. For us here, though, Lord, for all our students who know you, would you make known to them the few that they can be urgently making you known Jesus name? Amen. Thank you.