This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day five of week two of our look at the book of Luke.
That means we're in chapter 10, and that means Jesus is heading toward
Jerusalem. His time physically walking with his disciples is very short, and so
now he begins to prepare them for a new kind of life, a new kind of ministry.

And Luke chapter 10 is a chapter that's all about priorities. It's all about
living for what's most important. It begins with the training of the 70.

Jesus sent out 12 to minister for him, and now he's going to send out 70 to
minister for him. Not only the 12 are prepared to serve, there are more that are
prepared to serve. We've learned that there are women who are following Jesus,
and we've seen a list of some of those women earlier, and now we see that there
are these 70 that are following The 12 were maybe the leaders, but there's a
large group of people following Jesus now that he's training for ministry.

And then training in the 70, we begin to learn some priorities. Priority number
one we learn is ask the Lord to send workers. That's one of Jesus' priorities.

Chapter 10 verse 1, "After the Lord appointed 72 others and sent them out two by
two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go, he told them,
'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest,
therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. '" One of the priority
prayers that Jesus wants me to pray is, "Lord, send workers.

Send people. Send someone to tell the good news to that friend of mine. Send
someone to tell the good news to that office.

Send someone to tell the good news to that country. Send someone to express the
compassion of Christ in that hospital, in that country, in that neighborhood, in
that home. Ask God to send people.

Send his people. Ask God to bring the light. Ask God to bring the salt.

That's one of God's priorities. I don't pray that prayer often enough. I don't
know about you.

I need to pray it more often because it's one of God's priorities. Priority
number two that we learn from this chapter, we're going to learn four of them
from this chapter, is the priority of rejoicing that your name is written in
heaven. The priority of the source of your joy.

In verse 17, these 72 go out and they serve God and then they come back. The 72
return with joy and they said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.
" He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven and I've given you
the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power
of the enemy.

Nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the Spirit submit to you,
but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. " Jesus says, "I'm going to
do some great things through your life.

" To these early disciples, he says, "I'm even going to protect you because I
need you to be serving me. " He doesn't give the same promise of protection from
all these things to every believer, but he protected them. Jesus says, "Don't
take joy from that.

Don't take joy from the results of your ministry. Take joy from your connection
to God. " Joy should always be built on a relationship.

If you build joy on actions, if you build joy on results, it's going to go up
and down, and that's not real joy. Joy is something that cannot be lost. So what
do you build it on?

Something that can't be lost. What's the only thing that you can't lose in this
world? Your relationship with God.

Even people will let you down, and certainly circumstances will let you down, so
you build it on your relationship with him. Rejoice that your name is written in
heaven. You may have had a terrible week.

Nothing. Nothing to be happy about. You can still have joy.

You can rejoice that your name is written in heaven. In this moment, we get an
insight into the heart of God. Jesus, after he sees what's happened with these
72, he talked to the Father about his disciples.

It makes me wonder as I read these verses, how does he talk to the Father about
me, about you? In verse 21, at that time, Jesus, full of joy through the Holy
Spirit said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have
hidden these things from the wise and learned, and you've revealed them to
little children. Yes, Father, this was your good pleasure.

" He saw how these humble men, these humble women were serving him, and God was
working, and it brought him great joy to see what was happening. Priority one,
ask the Lord to send workers. Priority two, rejoice that your name is written in
heaven.

Priority number three in this chapter is love the Lord your God, and love your
neighbor as yourself. Verse 25, "On one occasion, an expert in the law stood up
to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he said, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?

' 'What is written in the law? ' Jesus replied. 'How do you read it?

' He answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your strength, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
' 'You have answered correctly,' Jesus replied, 'do this and you will live. '"
When this law expert then questions Jesus about who his neighbor is, Jesus tells
the parable of the Good Samaritan.

It's a parable about making love the priority of your life. These are the
ultimate priorities. A man comes and says, "What is the most important thing in
life?

" Jesus says, "What do you think? " "Love the Lord your God. Love your neighbor
as yourself.

" "Right," Jesus says. So if I miss out on that, I've missed out on the most
important thing in life. However the circumstances of life are going right now,
let me ask you this.

Are you loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength?
Are you loving your neighbor as yourself? No matter how bad the circumstances,
you can choose that priority today and you can live for the most important thing
in life today.

No matter how good the circumstances, don't get caught up in that as if it's the
only priority. Choose this as the priority. Don't get lost in lesser things.

Love the Lord your God. Love your neighbor as yourself. And then at the end of
this chapter we see a fourth priority.

The priority, as Jesus expresses it, to choose the better thing. Listen to what
happens in verses 38 to 42. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he
came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he
said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She
came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do
all the work by myself?

Tell her to help me. " "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and
upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is
better and it will not be taken away from her.

" Here are these two sisters who, as sisters sometimes do, are upset with each
other, irritated each other. Martha expects her sister to be helping with the
preparations and her sister is sitting at the feet of Jesus, God in human flesh,
maybe only the one and only opportunity she might have. She will get others, but
she doesn't know that.

And Martha wants to make sure that people are fed well. There's nothing wrong
with that. But she's missing one of the most important supreme moments of life.

This is not, this is not a story about who does the work in the kitchen. The
work in the kitchen needs to be done. Somebody needs to wash the dishes.

It's great that somebody cooks a meal. That's not what it's about. It's about
what's the greatest priority in your life.

And there are sometimes, there are sometimes when the work in the kitchen should
not be done because something else is more important. It might be a child who's
crying and it certainly might be the worship of Jesus Christ. Now, today you
think, well, we can always worship him, but you know, there are moments of
worship you can't recapture.

There are moments for your heart that you cannot recapture. Jesus says she has
chosen the better thing, a lot of good things in life. Are you choosing the
better thing?

That's the priority question. You see what's happening here. Jesus is heading
toward Jerusalem.

He is choosing the better thing. He is choosing to go and give his life for us.
He is choosing the priority of life over all the opportunities he could have
spent the rest of his life healing people and teaching people and had more than
enough to do, a long line of people, thousands to serve every day of his life.

But he doesn't choose that. He chooses the priorities. And in this chapter, as
Jesus sets out on his priority, we learn about our priorities.

Pray for workers to be sent out into the harvest. Lord, I forget to do that.
Help me to do it more often.

Rejoice that your name is written in heaven. Lord, help me not to take joy, not
to try to take joy from the circumstances of life or the work that I do in life.
Rejoice that you let me do work and thank you when circumstances go well.

I'm grateful for that. But joy, joy is found in my relationship with you, which
cannot be lost. Remind me of that today.

Love God. Love your neighbor. Lord, today help me to love you with all my heart,
soul, mind and strength.

I need to learn to do that. Help me to learn to do that just a little bit better
today. Help me to love my neighbor as myself.

Instead of getting so caught up in myself again, help me to see the people in my
life through your eyes and love them. And Lord Jesus, today help me to choose
what is better. There are so many good things, so many things that need to be
done and I need to do some of them today.

But Lord, in that, help me not to become so irritated by the things that need to
be done that I miss that you're there. So whether it's in the doing of the thing
that I worship you or whether I need somehow to set that thing aside today and
do something else to worship you or serve someone else. Lord, help me to choose
what is better.

Help me to choose your priorities today. I ask this in your name. Amen.

Next week, we'll be looking together at chapters 11 to 15. They are filled with
teaching and with parables from Jesus on how to live the life that he has given.