The Basis For Christian Joy – Part 5
Luke 10:22-24
March 3, 2019
As you know, we are in a section where
We are talking about the basis for Christian joy.
We’ve thus far seen 3 of those realities.
#1 SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY
Luke 10:17-19
The seventy returned and where rejoicing at the victories they had won while on their missionary venture. “The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”
Jesus then confirmed that joy by revealing that He had been “watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning”. This indicated the spiritual victories they had been winning.
And ultimately Jesus announced the total victory that God’s messengers have over the enemy. “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.”
• It is the reality that Satan is a defeated foe.
• He cannot hold anyone whom God has determined to set free through the preaching of the gospel.
• And Satan cannot reclaim anyone whom God has chosen.
We rejoice in that.
And since that’s what the 70 were rejoicing in,
That is where Jesus began the teaching.
But He quickly turned to reveal even greater reasons for rejoicing.
#2 SECURE SALVATION
Luke 10:20
It wasn’t that the 70 were wrong to rejoice in their spiritual authority,
But by comparison there is a much greater reason to rejoice.
Jesus confirmed their rejoicing in their spiritual authority,
And yet He COMMANDED their rejoicing in their secure salvation.
“Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names have been recorded in heaven.”
This indicates a secure and sovereign decision by the Father.
• This is the roll sheet of heaven.
• This is the Lamb’s book of life.
• This was the book written before the foundation of the world.
• It is the list of those granted access into heaven.
• It is the list of those who are not cast into the lake of fire.
• And it is a list of which Jesus promised He would not blot our name from.
Certainly anyone whose name is on that list has reason for rejoicing!
Regardless of the struggles of this life, we know we have an eternal home,
Where we will dwell with God in eternal joy.
So those are two reasons for Christian rejoicing.
Spiritual Authority & Secure Salvation.
And for the last couple of weeks we’ve been on the third reason.
Incidentally a reality that even Jesus rejoiced in:
#3 SOVEREIGN GRACE
Luke 10:21-22
We have already tackled part of this passage,
Especially those parts which at first seem a little peculiar to us.
We first addressed the issue that here you clearly have Jesus praising the Father for hiding the truth of who He is from the wise and intelligent.
That may have seemed peculiar to us until we realized all that was occurring.
When we realized that man in his fallen wisdom
Refused to honor God as God
We then see why God chose to reject
And ultimately humiliate their human wisdom.
If human wisdom wasn’t going to honor God
You can rest assured that God wasn’t going to honor human wisdom.
So instead
• God orchestrated a plan of salvation that required the rejection of human
wisdom.
• God orchestrated a plan of salvation that required humility and even
foolishness by the world’s standards.
This plan was the cross.
Too weak for Jews and too foolish for Greeks.
But ultimately this plan would be salvation for those willing to forsake their own power and wisdom for God’s.
AND JESUS PRAISED THE FATHER FOR THIS.
That God has the right to hide truth from some while revealing it to others.
And that is what we discussed LAST WEEK.
Namely the reality of SOVERIGN GRACE.
We looked at the two words.
First to understand that GOD IS SOVEREIGN.
Because He is the Potter, He has the right to do whatever He desires with the clay.
• If it is His will to save everyone, He can.
• If it is His will to save no one, He can.
• If it is His will to save some, He can.
He is sovereign.
He can do whatever He wants with what is His.
And we saw in Romans 9 how God throughout history has done just that.
And we saw that man has no grounds for questioning Him about it.
HE IS SOVEREIGN.
But the good news for us is that in His sovereignty, He is also full of GRACE.
• All men are sinful.
• None are good.
• None have sought for God.
And so one would expect for the sovereign God of the universe
To give all men what they deserve, which is JUDGMENT.
BUT GOD IS GRACIOUS, and so He chose to save some.
He pulled them out of death and gave them life.
Ultimately we saw that He chose to reveal to these “infants”
Exactly who Christ (the Savior) is.
And the wonderful reality in this is that if God hadn’t done this, then no one would have known it.
We read, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father.”
If God doesn’t open your eyes to who Jesus is, then you can’t know Him.
And ultimately here we see WHY JESUS WAS REJOICING.
God had chosen, by His sovereign grace,
To reveal the truth of Jesus to the infants of the world
So that they might be saved and have their names recorded in heaven.
Jesus rejoiced in this.
Jesus praised the Father for this.
AND WE DO TOO!
• We rejoice in our Spiritual Authority
• We rejoice in our Secure Salvation
• We rejoice in God’s Sovereign grace to give us both.
And that is what we’ve seen so far.
But you probably recognize that before we move on to the 4th point
There is one more phrase here that we need to examine.
It is a statement sort of reads as an “In Addition to” doctrinal reality.
It is one more thing Jesus wanted us to understand
Under the realm of sovereignty.
NAMELY, that the Father is not the only One with sovereignty.
The Son also has it.
Jesus said, “and [no one knows] who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
Well there’s some doctrine we need to grasp.
Let’s break it apart a little.
1) “no one knows…who the Father is”
Let’s just take that truth for a moment and dwell upon it.
We of course are reminded of the transcendence of God
And the fact that no man has seen or can see Him.
Paul speaks of this reality in:
1 Timothy 6:15-16 “He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.”
Those are some powerful descriptors that Paul used.
• “dwells in unapproachable light”
• “whom no man has seen or can see”
And we are instantly reminded of things like THE VEIL where the glory of God resided, off limits to the people.
We are reminded of people like Moses who asked God to see His glory.
God’s response:
Exodus 33:18-23 “Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. “Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”
Or we are reminded of the say Isaiah saw the glory of the LORD and he instantly claimed that he was a dead man!
Isaiah 6:1-5 “In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”
Or we are reminded of the day Ezekiel saw God’s glory and instantly fell on his face…twice:
Ezekiel 1:28 “Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.”
Ezekiel 3:23 “So I got up and went out to the plain; and behold, the glory of the LORD was standing there, like the glory which I saw by the river Chebar, and I fell on my face.”
You just can’t approach God.
That was the point.
The men who just saw a portion of His after-glow
Thought they were dying because of it.
Not only that, but ultimately you can’t even know God.
Romans 11:33-34 “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR?”
Even what we read in 1 Corinthians 2 a couple of weeks ago
Reminded us that the knowledge of God is beyond our human minds.
1 Corinthians 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”
It’s just the simple fact that man has no capacity
To see or know or draw near to God.
ON HIS OWN, MAN CANNOT KNOW THE FATHER.
In fact, there is only one man who ever could make that claim,
AND THAT WAS CHRIST.
Which is what we see here.
2) “no one knows…who the Father is, except the Son”
Jesus is the only Man to ever be able to claim to know God.
And incidentally, Jesus claimed it many times.
John 6:46 “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.”
John 7:29 “I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.”
John 8:54-55 “Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God’; and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.”
John 10:15 “even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”
John 17:25n”O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me;”
That means, for the first time in the course of human history
One has arrived who can speak experientially about the Father.
The prophets could speak with authority regarding what God revealed to them about Himself, but Jesus could even speak experientially.
We finally have One who knows Him.
We finally have One who has seen Him.
He’s the only One who can make a claim to knowing God.
Every other opinion of the Father then is absolutely secondary to what Jesus says about Him, because Jesus alone actually knows Him.
HE IS THE EXPERT ON GOD.
But then there’s something even more astounding here.
3) “no one knows…who the Father is, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
Now there is an obvious sovereignty aspect to that one as well.
Since it is up to the prerogative of the Son to reveal the Father.
“anyone to whom the Son WILLS to reveal Him.”
But first we have to recognize the wonderful reality here that
Because the Son knows the Father,
He can reveal the Father to anyone He wants.
The Son CAN reveal the Father.
JESUS DOES REVEAL GOD TO US.
And consider that truth:
John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
John 8:19 “So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.”
John 10:30 “I and the Father are one.”
Paul wrote:
Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
The writer of Hebrews wrote:
Hebrews 1:1-4 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.”
Jesus is the only One who knows the Father,
He’s the only One who can show you the Father
He’s the only One who can grant you access to the Father.
Point being: THROUGH JESUS, THE UNAPPROACHABLE GOD
IS NOW ACCESSIBLE TO MAN.
BUT, it is only for those whom “the Son wills to reveal Him.”
SO WHAT IS THE REQUIREMENT OF THE SON FOR HIM TO REVEAL THE FATHER TO MAN?
John 8:21-27 “Then He said again to them, “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews were saying, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” So they were saying to Him, “Who are You?” Jesus said to them, “What have I been saying to you from the beginning? “I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father.”
Did you catch it?
“unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
Of course they refused, and John even adds this footnote to the statement of Jesus: “They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father.”
They wouldn’t believe and so they were not permitted to see.
Jesus would not reveal the Father to anyone who did not believe.
Or consider:
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”
There again, you have a group of people whom the Son will not accept
Because they did not do “the will of My Father.”
Which is of course to believe in Christ.
Jesus only reveals the Father to those who believe in Him.
And to those who do believe, Jesus does reveal the Father.
John 14:8-11 “Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”
• The disciples had heard many times from the Lord how He alone knew the Father.
• Philip asked to be introduced, “Take us to the Father.”
• And of course Jesus said, “I am, look at Me, and you’re seeing the Father.”
Jesus reveals the Father to whom He will.
THAT IS WHY WE ALSO SAY WE ARE SPEAKING ABOUT
THE NECESSITY OF JESUS HERE.
Obviously there’s no spiritual authority apart from Jesus,
• Since the demons were only subject to the 70 in Jesus’ name.
Obviously there’s no secure salvation apart from Jesus,
• Since He is the One who promised Satan couldn’t have you back,
• And that book is actually the “book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.”
• And He purchased those written in heaven.
And obviously you can’t know the Father if Jesus doesn’t reveal Him.
YOU SEE THE NECESSITY OF JESUS ALL OVER THIS SECTION.
And here we are reminded that apart from Jesus we can’t know the Father.
SO WHY THE REJOICING?
It’s simple:
• We have here the unknowable God, whom man can’t know apart from sovereign grace.
• And yet God chose to make Himself known through Christ so that by believing in Him, we may know the Father.
There’s your rejoicing!
BECAUSE OF GOD’S SOVEREIGN GRACE
WE CAN KNOW HIM
The Father willed to show you the Son
Who in turn willed to introduce you to the Father.
We praise God for such a sovereign and gracious decision.
And that leads us then to the final point of Christian rejoicing.
Spiritual Authority, Secure Salvation, Sovereign Grace
#4 SPECIAL REVELATION
Luke 10:23-24
• After confirming the rejoicing of the 70 regarding their authority
• After commanding the rejoicing of the 70 for their security
• After celebrating with the 70 their salvation by sovereign grace
Jesus now turns to the 12
And CLARIFIES why they should be rejoicing as well.
(23-24) “Turning to the disciples, He said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.”
Jesus turned to them and said that they were “Blessed”
“Blessed” by the way is a Greek word
Which means “to make happy”
Jesus is giving another reason for rejoicing,
And it is that as believers in Jesus
We have received a special revelation.
Certainly He is referring to the fact that the Father has shown us the Son.
Certainly He is referring to the fact that the Son has shown us the Father.
Jesus is simply making sure the disciples understand
How blessed they are to have received it.
“Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see”
WHY?
“for I say to you that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.”
Now here Jesus ISN’T distinguishing between the saved and the unsaved.
That distinction was up in verses 21-22.
That is not the case here.
• The prophets He speaks of here are those who are true children of God.
• The kings He speaks of here are the redeemed kings of old.
They are people from the Old Testament who were saved
And now dwell with God by reason of their faith.
Jesus is talking about prophets like Elijah, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah,
And kings like David, and Solomon, and Josiah.
But Jesus says here that the disciples should rejoice
Because they have been given special revelation
Beyond what they even received.
WHAT REVELATION IS THAT?
JESUS
• They saw Jesus!
• They heard Him preach
• They saw His works
• Some of them even saw His glory on the mountain.
We already saw that:
• Jesus is the greatest revelation of God that the world ever received.
• Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature.
• No one has seen God, but Jesus explained Him.
Those Old Testament prophets saw many remarkable things.
• They saw the rise and fall of kingdoms…
• They saw the judgment and deliverance of God’s people…
• They saw even eschatological events like the end of the world…
But even in all of that, they had never seen anything
Like the One was standing right before the disciples.
They were witnessing the greatest revelation of all time.
JESUS
And through the apostles,
WE ALSO ARE BLESSED to have this revelation.
And like we did previously, in order to explain this better, I want to go and examine a different passage of Scripture briefly this morning.
TURN TO: 1 PETER 1:10-12
• 1 Peter is written to the persecuted church.
• And he opens by telling them that they rejoice in salvation, even though currently they suffer various trials.
(READ: 3-9)
They rejoice in salvation.
And then Peter does the same for his readers
That Jesus did for him back in Luke 10.
He explains the blessing of having this special revelation.
(READ 10-12)
Peter is talking about the revelation of salvation,
And even more specifically the revelation of Jesus Christ.
And Peter makes some marvelous points here.
1) THIS REVELATION WAS INDICATED BY THE SPIRIT
“As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ was indicating within them as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.”
Now first we recognize there that
The Holy Spirit was working in the Old Testament to reveal certain truths to the prophets regarding “the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.”
And we don’t have time to read them all, but some are readily familiar to you.
We have all rejoiced in Psalms 2:
• How the kings of the earth took their stand against Christ, and how God laughed at them.
• How God ordained Christ as King and told the inhabitants of earth that you’d better bow to Him before He breaks our knees.
We have all seen the vivid accuracy of Psalms 22:
• Where David described the crucifixion 100s of years before crucifixion had even been invented.
We have all rejoiced in the promises of Isaiah 42
• About the Servant who would come to open blind eyes and set the captives free.
We have all seen the allusion to suffering of Isaiah 50
• Where the Servant would give His back to those who strike Him and give His cheeks to those who would pluck out His beard.
We have all seen the remarkable accuracy of Isaiah 53
• Where the Servant bore the sin of God’s people for whom the stroke was due.
We have rejoiced in Psalms 16
• And the promised resurrection from the dead.
The Holy Spirit told those prophets many great truths
About this coming Christ and His suffering and glory.
The truth of Christ was Indicated by the Spirit.
2) THIS REVELATION WAS INVESTIGATED BY THE PROPHETS
In regard to this revelation of the Spirit, Peter says that “the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time” was being indicated.
They wanted to know when.
They wanted to know who.
We all remember Simeon by the time Jesus arrived:
Luke 2:25-26 “And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.”
Jesus even said that Abraham looked for this day.
John 8:56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”
In other words, they received a little, but they wanted so much more.
• Isaiah wanted to see this child who would be born of the virgin and who would reign on David’s throne.
• Jeremiah wanted to experience this New Covenant God had told him about.
• Zechariah wanted to know WHEN this King would come seated on a donkey’s colt.
They saw the value of the information and they wanted it bad.
Indicated by the Spirit, Investigated by the Prophets
3) THE REVELATION WAS INTERPRETED BY THE APOSTLES
“It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which have now been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit from heaven”
The prophets wanted to know “Who?”
The prophets wanted to know “When?”
All God would tell them was that it was not for them to know.
Peter says, God was saving that information for “you”
Jesus revealed it to the apostles, and they now teach it to you.
Remember the Ethiopian Eunuch’s desire to make sense of Isaiah’s revelation?
Acts 8:29-35 “Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this: “HE WAS LED AS A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER; AND AS A LAMB BEFORE ITS SHEARER IS SILENT, SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH. “IN HUMILIATION HIS JUDGMENT WAS TAKEN AWAY; WHO WILL RELATE HIS GENERATION? FOR HIS LIFE IS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH.” The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.”
Philip gave that Eunich information that Isaiah never even received.
Or go read the gospel of Matthew
• And note how many times Matthew saw Jesus do something or heard Jesus say something and then wrote, “This was to fulfill the word that was spoken…”
Matthew saw what those prophets were only begging to see.
DO YOU SEE HOW BLESSED IT IS TO KNOW THAT?
If you don’t, just look at Peter’s last point:
4) THE REVELATION WAS ENJOYED BY THE ANGELS
“things into which angels long to look.”
I heard Jerry Vines outline this text like this.
• The Prophets Set the Stage
• The Apostles Script the Story
• The Angels See the Show
Jesus is the greatest revelation the world has ever known
And even angels were captivated by His every word and every move.
The point is, there is no greater revelation than this.
AND YOU CHURCH HAVE IT!
• Think of the people born in foreign nations who don’t have access to the gospel.
• Think of those in Third World Countries who have never heard the name of Jesus.
But you have been told.
You have been shown.
REJOICE IN THAT!
IT’S AMAZING TO ME THAT ANYONE
Could ever be DISGRUNTLED or FRUSTRATED about things like
“having to go to church” or “having to read the Bible”.
Well it’s only the greatest revelation that world has ever seen.
It’s only the most sought after information of all time.
And Jesus here told the disciples that
They should rejoice that God saw fit to give it to them.
He didn’t even give that knowledge
To some of the greatest prophets and kings who ever lived.
God showed you what He didn’t even show
David or Isaiah or Elijah or Abraham.
Do you remember all of those great saints in the Faith Hall of Fame in Hebrews 11?
None of them saw what you have seen.
Hebrews 11:39-40 “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”
Can you see how blessed you are?
Can you see how you should rejoice that God showed this to you?
THAT IS THE BASIS FOR CHRISTIAN REJOICING!
• We don’t rejoice in the things of this world.
• We don’t rejoice in sinful pleasures.
• We don’t rejoice in earthly comforts or earthly fame.
WE REJOICE IN JESUS!
• We rejoice in the Spiritual Authority that comes through Him
• We rejoice in the Secure Salvation that He provided
• We rejoice in the Sovereign Grace that drew us to Him.
• We rejoice in the Special Revelation of Him.
THAT IS THE BASIS FOR CHRISTIAN REJOICING!
