How to Sabotage Our Mission

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As we are working our way through Luke chapter 9, we’ve seen a kind of transition take place where the disciples have gone from just training for the ministry that Jesus is going to give them to now they’re entering a phase where they’re actually being sent out for short periods of time on mission. They’re preparing for what that mission is going to look like and how they’re going to carry it out, and they’re having to care about things like mission and strategy, some of these things that are going to be very important to their ministry later on. And I love things like strategy. I can’t say that I’m always good at it.

I can’t play chess to save my life, but there is a game I love called Mancala, where the objective is to move these rocks around on a board and get, you know, you line them up certain ways and you can get extra turns and the objective is to get all of the rocks or as many of the rocks in your cup as you can. And I’ve loved this game since I was a kid and I’ve loved it so much so that I have a multi-decade strategy of parenting and raising opponents that could play me. And so I started them very young playing this game and showed them no mercy. Never once have I let them win. And now, at least my older two can play this game and sometimes beat me, and it makes it a great challenge. But there’s some strategy involved in this, and part of my problem is Benjamin knows my strategy. He’s figured it out.

See, if you can line up these rocks in certain numbers, in certain patterns, in one turn, you can clear the board. And so he will try to do this to me, and I’ll try to do it to him. We will try to line things up where we can go around and mess up the other one’s strategy. But even easier than sabotaging your opponent is sabotaging yourself. It’s always easier to sabotage yourself. I don’t care what it is. It’s always easier to sabotage yourself than to sabotage somebody else. If I’m not paying attention or if I’m overly confident, I can miscount. I can line them up in the wrong pattern, and my whole strategy is gone. It’s always easier to sabotage yourself.

When we think of the word sabotage, if you’re like me, your mind goes to something like in a war, where somebody will sneak behind enemy lines, and they’ll try to disrupt the railroads, or they’ll try to blow up bridges, things like that. We think of that as sabotage. But sabotage can be things that we do on a daily basis that interfere with the mission we are trying to complete. And this morning, as we’re talking about the mission that the disciples are being sent on, we come across a section of Luke chapter 9, where Luke points out three stories about how the disciples, as they are preparing to be sent out on this mission, begin to do things and begin to act in ways that are going to sabotage the mission that Jesus is sending them out on. They are doing things that go against the strategy that they should be working.

And so we’re going to look at these things this morning and hopefully learn from their example of how to sabotage our mission. These are things not to do as we seek to serve Jesus Christ and fulfill the mission that he’s given us. So if you haven’t already, turn with me, please, to Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9. By the way, we could look at the opposite of doing these things as part of our strategy. But Luke chapter 9, and once you find the passage, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, we’re going to start in Luke 9, verse 46, and we’re going to read through 56 this morning. And here’s what Luke says. An argument started among them, that’s the disciples, as to which of them might be the greatest.

But Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart, took a child and stood him by his side and said to him, John answered and said, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us. But Jesus said, When the days were approaching for his ascension, he was determined to go into Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead of him, and they went and entered a village. Pardon me, I turned too many pages here. A village of the Samaritans to make arrangements for him. But they did not receive him because he was traveling toward Jerusalem. When his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them.

But he turned and rebuked them and said, you do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went on to another village. And you may be seated. So here we’re going to see three things that they did that were setting them up to sabotage the mission that Jesus was sending them out on. And like I said, we could look at doing the opposite of what they did as a pretty good strategy for our mission. Now, to be very clear, these are not the only three things that we could do to sabotage the mission He’s given us, but these are the three that are pointed out here. These are three things that just from the outset are going to doom our mission, or at least our participation in the mission, to failure. Excuse me.

But before we get into what these steps are, it’s important for us to make sure we understand what their mission is, and by extension, what our mission is. And to do this, we can go back to the beginning of chapter 9. It’s been a few weeks since we looked at this. But in Luke 9, 1 and 2, as he prepared to send the 12 out for the very first time, it says, and he called the 12 together and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and perform healing. So prior to these incidents that he’s talking about here in this, in the section we read this morning, before those things, he sent these disciples out and he said, you’re going to go out and you’re going to heal. You’re going to go out and you’re going to cast out demons. You’re going to go out and you’re going to preach.

You’re to draw people’s attention to Jesus. This is what they were sent out to do, and that’s before the crucifixion. After the crucifixion, one of the very final things that Jesus did on this earth was to commission his followers to go out and do the same thing. The only difference is now we have more information about what that good news is that we’re supposed to proclaim. The believer’s mission is to tell other people about our king and to prepare them for his kingdom. He gave these same marching orders in Luke 24 when he said, It is written that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

He tells them that it is necessary that the message goes out from Jerusalem, that the Messiah has died, has suffered for sins, and that He has risen again. It needs to be proclaimed that forgiveness of sins is available in His name because of what He’s done. It needs to go out from Jerusalem to every corner of the world, and he says, and you are witnesses. It began with them. It was their job. And folks, that was not just given to the people who were physically present the day Jesus gave it. Jesus gave those marching orders to his church, and that is our mission still today. To carry the good news about our king and his coming kingdom to the ends of the world. to every nation, tribe, and tongue, to those who are across the street from us, to those who are overseas from us. That’s our mission. That was their mission. That’s our mission.

And they were about to embark on some things that would sabotage them from being able to do that. As we looked at last week, one of the worst things we could do is not understand this mission. not understand what he’s left us here to do. We get easily distracted. We get easily caught up in our own agendas, in our own mission, in things that look like good ideas but aren’t the best idea. We get caught up in those. But he gave us this mission. He gave us one thing to do that we’re supposed to have a sense of urgency about. I think over the last week, some of us have felt that sense of urgency.

I know that even before this week There have been people in our church Who have been talking about a sense of urgency I know of a couple of ladies in particular Talking about the time is short I hope this doesn’t embarrass you for me to share But I love it Miss Daniela chased somebody down the street the other day Because the Lord said Go make sure that he knows about Jesus because the time is short. Now, am I saying Jesus is coming back in our lifetime? I’m not saying that. I wouldn’t dare speculate when he’s coming back. But he could come back any moment. He could come back for any one of us at any moment. We don’t know how much time we have to be on this mission. So it’s not something we put off till tomorrow. It’s not something we think about tomorrow. It’s something we get in the fight and we engage on today because it’s the one thing he gave us to do.

and we don’t allow ourselves to get focused on anything else. If it doesn’t further that mission, we shouldn’t have a lot of time to spend on it. So three things that the disciples did that were going to sabotage this mission from the get-go. We sabotage this mission when we make it about us. Look with me again at verses 46 through 48. they started arguing, it says, about who was the greatest. If you remember back to last week, they still misunderstand what the kingdom was for and what the king was about because they thought he was going to set up an earthly kingdom. They thought he was going to throw the Romans out. They thought this was going to be a new golden age of Israel. It would be like the second coming of David. It’s going to be great. And they’re all thinking, we want to be on the right and left hand of the king. We want to be in positions of power and authority.

And so they were debating among them which of them is the greatest. This is like kid stuff when you hear them arguing, oh, I’m better than you are. No, I’m better than you are. No, you’re not. Yes, I’m telling mom, this is the kind of stuff they’re doing. Are they going to be able to focus on the mission he’s given when they’re making the mission all about them? No, they’re too focused on what they’ve done, on why they would be the greatest. They’re seeking honor. They’re seeking praise. They’re seeking position. And they’re seeking it based on all the things they had done. On how often they had done it. How long they had done it. How well they had done it. How pleased everybody was. And this debate naturally caused friction within the group and kept them from being able to focus on the work. Say, well, how do you know it caused friction in the group? Because they’re arguing about it.

He uses that word. They were arguing. They were debating. They were not focused on what Jesus had come to do. They were focused on how it made them look. Now, there’s nothing, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to do a good job in the things that we do for the Lord. When we do something for the Lord, we ought to do it to the best of our ability. Now, is what I do for the Lord going to look as good as what you do for the Lord? Not necessarily. But the main thing is we do our best in what we do for the Lord. But the moment we start to promote ourselves, we stop promoting Jesus. The moment we start making the mission about ourselves, we stop making the mission about Jesus. And then it’s not promoting the king and preparing for the kingdom anymore. And so to get them to understand this, Jesus brings this child over, verse 47.

And we look at that in our culture and we think, oh, how nice. You know, we have children up here and they come for the devotional and we see them, they’re sweet and innocent and we all care about the children and that’s wonderful. They saw this in a different way because children are weak and dependent compared to adults. Up to a certain age, they weren’t even supposed to be taught the Torah, the Old Testament. They weren’t supposed to be instructed in the law. up to a certain age. And so for a teacher, a rabbi like Jesus, there was no point in even engaging with these children. It would be beneath him. Jesus knew what was in these disciples’ hearts. He knew the pride and the self-centeredness that lurked there.

So he brings this child, somebody that should have been beneath him, beneath him as a teacher to spend any time with, he brings this child to him in all his weakness, in all his tendency, and he says in verse 48 that whoever receives this child in my name receives me. The disciples were worried about being the best and being better than each other and being better than anybody else, and Jesus brought up this child and said, it’s about those who are weakest. It’s not about your glory and your prestige. You go to those who least deserve it and can least do anything for you about it. And he who receives or welcomes this child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me. If they were to ignore their mission to the most vulnerable, they were ignoring that they were serving Jesus, and they were ignoring the will of the Father.

And so he ties their treatment of the least of these, those who were beneath them, to their treatment of Jesus and their reception of the Father. It is hard to make the service about ourselves when we stoop in humility to reach out and serve somebody who’s beneath us in the world’s eyes. I heard another preacher say it, that it’s hard to be prideful when you’re washing feet. To be great in the kingdom, we have to serve the Father in humility. To do that, we have to serve the Son in humility. We have to come through the Son in humility. I mentioned this the last week. I can’t remember what service it was in. But about how my pastor used to say growing up that the church and the Hell’s Angels were the only two organizations that you had to admit to being bad before you could get in. If we’re going to come to Jesus, we have to come in humility.

He doesn’t want all our self-righteous boasting, look at all I’ve done. Jesus wants us to come to him in the words of the song we sang this morning. Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. We don’t come boasting of what we’ve done. We come admitting that we are sinful, that we are wicked, that we are in need of his forgiveness and cannot do anything to earn it or deserve it. We have to come to the Son in humility, and we have to serve the most humble in humility. To fulfill our mission, we serve in humility, and we keep the focus and glory on Him where it belongs. So we sabotage the mission when we make it about us. Then we look at the next couple of verses here, verses 49 and 50. John comes, and he’s so proud of himself, and I read this in a child’s voice, because I can hear a tattling child in John’s voice.

Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he wasn’t one of us. Almost tattling on this other man. We sabotage the mission when we act like gatekeepers. Now, gatekeeper is a word that I’ve learned in the last few years, but it just sums it up. A gatekeeper is what it sounds like. The gatekeeper is somebody that opens the gate and closes the gate to let you in or let you out. And it’s used as a euphemism, like the White House chief of staff is the gatekeeper to the president. If you can’t get through the chief of staff, you can’t see the president. Doesn’t matter if you’re in the cabinet, doesn’t matter who you are. If you can’t get through the chief of staff, he doesn’t take your call. We can, if we’re not careful, act like gatekeepers to Jesus, deciding who gets in and who gets out. Even when it comes to the ministry.

Now, I don’t think we would ever do that in terms of somebody getting saved. Although I did recently hear a story about a pastor whose church got mad at him because of who he led to Christ and baptized him, and they didn’t want him in that church. what I’m talking about is when it comes to ministry they were upset because someone outside the group was found casting out demons in Jesus name and they even tried to stop him because he wasn’t part of their group and I wondered why do they object to this man casting out demons and there are a couple of reasons he didn’t have the right connections or the right credentials. And sometimes, unfortunately, this is the way the world operates anyway. I remember sitting in a while back on a meeting with a committee that was hiring somebody for a ministry position and looking at a candidate and his resume and somebody said, oh, he went to that school?

Oh, I can’t remember the exact words, but basically it was a hard pass. And I thought, oh, I’m kind of glad I’m on this side of the table and not the other side of the table. But somebody can have all the wrong credentials on paper and still be called by God to do ministry. Somebody cannot have gone to the right schools. Somebody cannot have had the right training. Somebody cannot have had the right family background and still be incredibly used by God in his service. And so for this man who was not part of their group to come and be casting out demons, they were upset he didn’t have the right connections, he didn’t have the right credentials, And so he was a threat to their own power and prestige in the kingdom. Oh, if this man starts casting out demons, then anybody can cast out demons. And if anybody can cast out demons, then we’re not special. Then we’re not special.

And then who’s going to be impressed by us in the kingdom? What if he likes that guy better? What if that guy gets to sit on the right hand when Jesus comes into his kingdom? So they were bothered by that. But again, one of those things that we learn by taking Luke as it was written, piece by piece, it was embarrassing to them because this man did what they could not. Remember back in chapter 9, verses 1 and 2, I read to you a minute ago, preached over several weeks ago. Jesus sent them out with authority to cast out demons. Last week we saw how in verse 40, the man came to Jesus and said, Can you cast the demon out of my son? I went to your disciples and they couldn’t do it. The disciples lacked the faith that they needed to do what Jesus told them they could do. And now here’s somebody else who’s not even part of our group. And he’s showing us up.

Sometimes we want to gatekeep because somebody else might serve Jesus more effectively, we think, than we can. Now, do I think anybody in this room is doing this? No, I don’t. I share it with you because it’s in the Word and because it’s one of those things we need to guard against. But they didn’t want anybody infringing on their position. And so Jesus told them in verse 50, do not interfere. Here, this guy is on the same side as us. He is not actively working against the kingdom, then he’s on the same team. One of the other gospels, Jesus tells them, Jesus adds there in the middle of this statement, nobody can cast out demons in my name and turn right around and speak evil against me. He said, if he can do this, it means we’re on the same team.

To fulfill our mission, sometimes we’re going to have to serve alongside other faithful servants that God has put in situations and places that we don’t think they ought to be. Well, God, I wouldn’t have called that person to do that. That’s fine, He did. They’re the Lord’s servants, not ours. And then finally this morning, we sabotage the mission when we fail to show grace. And this may be the hardest one of all. So in verses 51 through 56, they approach a Samaritan village on their way to Jerusalem. Now Luke presents these stories one right after another. He doesn’t say they happened at the same time. But we know this third event took place a little while later. but Luke puts them together so that we see the comparison among the three stories. They go to this Samaritan village on their way to Jerusalem.

It required, going from Galilee to Jerusalem, required them to travel through Samaria among these people who were half-breeds, as they would have thought. They were descendants of those Jews who intermarried with the pagans. So they didn’t like the Samaritans. The Samaritans didn’t like them. It was a very touchy situation, and he sent the disciples ahead to prepare for his visit. Verse 53, though, says they did not receive him, meaning they did not welcome him because he was traveling toward Jerusalem. The people in Samaria, in this village, got upset not because he was Jesus, not because he was Jewish, but because he was going to Jerusalem. He was heading there to observe the Jewish feasts at the Jewish temple instead of lingering there to worship as they did. There was this long-standing conflict between the Jews and Samaritans about the right place to worship.

And they were not interested in supporting the ministry of someone who wasn’t going to agree with them. They wanted Jesus to compromise on the truth. Now, since they didn’t receive Jesus as quickly and readily as the disciples thought they should, there was this really bizarre reaction. the disciples ask are you Lord how about we just call down fire from heaven on them right now let’s just burn up the whole village and I tell you what I have struggled with this for years because this is such a bizarre reaction to me who does that and then I felt it this week I felt it this week with what happened in the news this week everybody’s made it out to be about politics and I only think that’s because we have taken biblical issues and allowed them to be reframed as political what people don’t realize if they haven’t watched Charlie Kirk’s videos is that he was motivated by the gospel.

Oh, I don’t like his politics. Okay, fair. You probably wouldn’t like mine either. I don’t like what mine were 10 years ago. You know, that’s part of human existence. But his motivation was to go and speak on issues, not just to point out where people were wrong, but to call people to Jesus Christ. And he did that frequently on campus. As a matter of fact, I found out that Frank Turek, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because I quote him all the time. Frank Turek was there at that event because they were there to do ministry together. That young man, a few moments before he was shot, was talking about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and inviting people to trust him as their Savior. And that young man at 31 years old had done more to advance the gospel in the dark abyss of this nation’s college campuses than anybody. And he was shot and killed.

And I found myself strangely devastated over somebody I’d never met. And then by the time I left church Wednesday night, I saw people celebrating. and then I got angry and I got it. Because if I’d had the opportunity I would have called down some fire right then too. And that’s understandable that we would feel that way, that we would react that way in the flesh. But when Jesus was outright rejected by the Samaritans he rebuked the disciples for that response. Not because they were necessarily wrong to feel that way, but because that’s not what we’re here to do. The mission is grace. Even when Jesus was rejected, he was beaten, he was despised at the cross, he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how it affects us personally, how angry we may be over any given circumstance, how wounded we may be, how disrespected we may be.

Jesus set an example for us at the cross of extending grace to those who do it. Grace does not mean surrender. Jesus didn’t compromise and say, it’s fine, I’ll go worship on Mount Gerizim then. Jesus didn’t compromise at the cross and say, you know what, I’ll back off some of these claims about being God. Jesus stood for truth, but he did so in a way that was gracious, and that’s what we’re called to do as well. And nothing will sabotage our ministry faster. Nothing will sabotage our mission, personally or corporately, faster than failing to show grace. Again, that doesn’t mean giving it. You notice the way Jesus showed grace was to walk away. And there is a place and there is a time for judgment. That’s what they wanted. And God’s judgment is just. Their idea was just, hey, let’s call down His judgment right now.

And when God’s judgment falls, it will be just, it will be deserved, it will be well executed. but it wasn’t the time for that. God will decide when that is. Until then, it’s our job as we carry out His mission to show grace so that people will understand the grace of a king who could have come to be served but came instead to let himself be betrayed and let himself be taken into custody and let himself be despised and rejected and mistreated in every conceivable way. Would let himself be nailed to that cross and be mocked and be scourged and shed his blood and die. A king who did not have to do any of that but a king who willingly did all of that so that those of us who least deserved His grace would receive it freely. Even me.

When we fail to show grace, when we fail to respond to things in the way Jesus would, when we’re just a little too excited about the reality of judgment, we will sabotage the mission. Jesus told us he did not come into this world to condemn the world the world is condemned already instead he said God sent his son into the world that through him the world might be saved and that’s our responsibility to take the message about that king and his kingdom to a dark and depraved world that needs to hear it and I want to start this morning by saying not start the message but start that by saying, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, that’s where all of it begins. The realization that we have, each and every one of us, sinned against a holy God. The realization that none of us deserve that fellowship with Him. None of us deserve to be right with Him.

And yet, in spite of our sin, He loved us enough that Jesus Christ came to earth to pay for our sin. God couldn’t just ignore our sin or let it go or compromise with it it had to be punished but Jesus Christ came to take that punishment in full so that you and I could go free he rose again three days later so that we would have the hope of eternal life and now he promises that to all those who believe so this morning if you believe that you’ve sinned and and you know that your sin has left you far separated from God. But you believe Jesus died to pay for your sins in full, and you believe he rose again, you can ask for that forgiveness, and he’ll give it to you.

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