Coast Bible Church - Looking for a Few Good Babies - Audio

Pastor Tom teaches us that, to be powerfully used by God, we must become like babies, naively trusting Jesus and following his commands, no questions asked. In God’s economy, it is through the babies—not the wise and intelligent—that the Spirit disarms the powers and brings about the shalom of God.

Broadcast on: 12 Oct 2014

Boy, last week sure was a downer. Yeah. I mean, you guys remember, Jesus is out there, we're on the brink of disaster at the beginning of this text. Really awful stuff. The whole world is under demonic enslavement, demons everywhere you look. And not just the obvious demons, right, the ones that take control of a person and make them hurt themselves and live amongst the graves. No, no, these are some serious demons, the ones that are behind the scenes, the ones that are insidious, deep and pervasive, the ones that corrupt and twist our institutions and our hearts to the point that we don't even know we're under their enslavement and yet we are completely in their thrall. And Jesus is about to send out 70, or possibly 72, of his followers to go out in the midst of this and try to liberate them, liberate the people from demonic slavery. And of course, Jesus is terrified for his followers. He says, I'm sending you out as sheep among wolves. He says, when they reject you, when they're hostile to you, this is how you will respond. And we are set up for failure. Praise Texas, Luke 10, 17 to 24, in your Pew Bibles, it's on page 548. And let's see if Jesus' worries are justified. So please turn to Luke 10, 17 to 24. And when you have it on page 548, please stand and we'll read the text together. After all that failure, no, then the 70 returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, behold friends, I give you authority, power to trample on serpents and scorpions over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. But don't rejoice in this, that the spirits, demonic powers are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven in that hour at the same time. Jesus rejoices in the spirit and says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent or prudent and revealed them to babes or babies. And so, Father, for it seemed good in your sight because you like doing that. It makes you happy. All things have been delivered to me by my Father and no one knows who the Son is except the Father or who the Father is except the Son and the one or the ones to whom the Son wills to reveal the Father. Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, happy, blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see and have not seen it, to hear what you hear and have not heard it. Please be seated. Whew. Whew. I mean, right? If we were in the text, if we were in that story, we were scared for the disciples and isn't it strange of the followers, isn't it strange that we hear nothing, we don't get any stories about what they do. Jesus sends them out, terrified for them, they're about to fail, and then, bam, they come back, fill the joy because they find that the victory in the Spirit is theirs and that nothing, even the demons, can resist them.

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