Flashback Episode — Happy in spite of Abuse: Luke 10:1-20

If you have ever found yourself with priorities that were misplaced, or if you have ever focused on something that you should have ignored, the passage we will be focusing on in this podcast episode may be worth paying attention to.

The passage we will be focusing in on for this episode comes at the end of a significant adventure Jesus sent his followers on. While we often think of Jesus’ followers as being unnumbered large crowds, or a small group of 12 disciples, the group Luke draws our attention to is somewhere between these two extremes.

In this event, Jesus welcomes back 72 of His followers who He had sent out in pairs as missionaries, and when they return, something significant stood out in my mind with Jesus’ welcome-back message.

Our passage for this podcast episode is found in the gospel of Luke, chapter 10, and we will be reading it using the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 17, Luke tells us that:

¹⁷ When the seventy-two came back, they were very happy and said, “Lord, even the demons obeyed us when we used your name!”

¹⁸ Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ Listen, I have given you power to walk on snakes and scorpions, power that is greater than the enemy has. So nothing will hurt you. ²⁰ But you should not be happy because the spirits obey you but because your names are written in heaven.”

This welcoming back message from Jesus is amazing. Leading up to this conclusion, Jesus had commissioned 72 of His followers to go to the neighboring cities and towns to share the great news about the Kingdom of God. When these followers return, they genuinely appear amazed and grateful for the power that God gave them when they used Jesus’ name.

In a similar way, in our own lives, it is very easy to get caught up focusing on our gifts, talents, abilities, connections, and our resources or resourcefulness, but while this is our tendency, Jesus challenges us like He challenged His followers.

This is because our tendency is to focus on us and what “we” have been given or blessed with. If we look closely at what these followers say in verse 17, we can see this hinted at. Luke tells us Jesus’ followers returned saying, “Lord, even the demons obeyed us when we used your name!”

While some might say that the focus is still rightfully being placed on God or Jesus in this statement, there are ways of sharing this idea that don’t include the words “us” or “we”. As an example, these followers could have collectively said, “Lord, the demons fled when they heard your name.”

By including the words “us” and “we”, there is a subtle hint drawing the focus onto the disciples, which then pulls it away from God. While it is not wrong for other people to look at us as followers of Jesus hoping or expecting to see Jesus, as followers of Jesus, our goal should not be collecting people we can call “our followers”.

Instead, the goal for someone who is following Christ is to point other people to follow Christ. If others follow Christ and simultaneously look up to us, then that is their decision. This is not something we should seek or strive for.

This is the subtle trap in how Jesus’ followers responded.

However, I find it interesting that Jesus doesn’t lead into His response by correcting them. Instead, Jesus opens His response by drawing attention to Satan being a defeated enemy, before then beginning to redirect their focus.

For each of us, while it is easy to get caught up focusing on what God has blessed us with, Jesus challenges us to focus on where we stand with God.

Above everything else, the primary reason for us to be happy is not because of the gifts God has given us in the present, but because of the big gift He has assured us of in the future. Every gift God could give to us today, aside from a strong relationship with Him, is nothing when compared to what He promises us when He returns. And more importantly, the primary focus of this life is to realize that we need God’s help. We ask God for help when we put our faith, hope, trust, and belief in Him, and this is the way we accept God’s promised future life in a new heaven and new earth.

Jesus’ message to His followers in this passage is significant. Jesus sees the subtle temptation and opening for pride to take hold in these followers and He shifts their focus back onto one that is aligned with God’s perspective.

It is interesting in my mind that Jesus focuses on the promise and assurance that His followers names are written in Heaven. This not only points these followers onto their future rewards, but it also subtly helps shift their perspective away from the present, earthly perspective and onto an eternity-focused, heavenly perspective.

When we intentionally stop and focus on life from the perspective of eternity, we are better able to understand many of the challenging areas of our lives in this sin-filled world. While it is a little obvious to say out loud, God knows that while bad things happen to innocent people in our sinful world, humans cannot abuse anyone out of heaven. The only way we forfeit heaven is if we choose to reject the gift Jesus offers to us.

Humans cannot abuse anyone out of heaven.

It is unfortunate that while Christians have a responsibility to share Jesus with others, too often, we do a poor job at it. However, Jesus is greater than even the broad Christian Church. For the two thousand or so years before the Jewish nation stepped into history, and before the 1500 years or so between the formation of the Jewish nation and Jesus launching the Christian movement, God has moved through individual lives leading people into realizing their need to depend on Him.

As Christians, we can easily misrepresent God and Jesus, but it would be foolish for us to think that God is surprised by this. Nothing we do can surprise God. When we screw up, God is ready with a backup plan.

For thousands of years, the devil has tried to abuse people out of heaven, but God is bigger, God is stronger, God is smarter. He won’t let Satan’s abuse separate or steal away those those He loves from being connected with Him.

God wants us to view life through His eyes, through the lens of eternity, and when we do this, we are able to understand many things regarding our present life and we are able to stay connected with Him even when times in this world get tough.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life. Purposefully seek to learn what He really is like in order to better be able to see life through the lens of eternity. Only when we look at life from the perspective of God can we begin to understand some of the challenges and pain that life brings our way.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself. The best way to learn about God is by starting with the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and focusing on learning about Jesus. Jesus came to show us what God the Father is like, and a picture of God that doesn’t reflect Jesus is a bad picture of God.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or be tricked into abandoning where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!