Rejoice That He Knows Your Name!

By Jared Warner

Willow Creek Friends Church

July 6, 2025

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Click to read in Swahili

Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili

Luke 10:1–11, 16-20 (ESV)

¹ After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. ² And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. ³ Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. ⁴ Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. ⁵ Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ ⁶ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. ⁷ And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house. ⁸ Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you. ⁹ Heal the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ ¹⁰ But whenever you enter a town and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, ¹¹ ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’

¹⁶ “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.” ¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” ¹⁸ And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹ Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. ²⁰ Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

This week my family went out to the farm. While there I helped my dad finish his wheat harvest. There is something about wheat harvest. It is the celebration of a year’s labor, everything you have worked so hard to accomplish is right in front of you. I love harvest.

There is something else about harvest. It is grueling work. You would think with all the machinery we have in contemporary agriculture things would go quickly, and for the most part you are correct. But there is a problem with today’s machinery. Just like every cell phone or electronic device you have in you home, there is some company that have some sort of proprietor tool required to do any maintenance on the machine. Most of us face this with out Iphones, some of us face this with our printers since HP has made it so their entire printer will not function unless you have used their replacement ink cartridges. For most people this is a minor inconvenience or annoyance but when your machinery, machinery that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars breaks down it becomes a nightmare. Especially when it happens during harvest.

In harvest every moment counts. You have a short window of time to get the crop out of the field before it begins to lose value. If it happens to be a year with greater than average rainfall, the seeds within the wheat head begin to sprout while they are still in the head, this renders the crop a failure because once the seed begins to germinate the nutritional value is displaced. And since we cannot easily digest grass, the grain that was once a staple in our diet is basically worthless. In a dry year every ounce of moisture within the plant evaporates and the seed shrivels into some raisin like stone, and because it has shriveled a gust of wind can cause the seed to fall out of the head so when you attempt to harvest the grain there is nothing remaining.

These are extreme cases, but when machinery has specialized equipment that fails, and the company requires only certified technicians to fix it, a simple breakdown in the field can become costly. Not only in the cost of hiring the repair, but there are a limited number of qualified technicians, these technicians may or may not be available when you need them and there are times where you might have to take the entire machine into the service station to be repaired. And if that happens you will need to hire transport, because the service stations are at times hundreds of miles away.

I helped my dad with harvest. And as we were out in the field a warning light came on. My heart sunk. I have a history with machinery. If some unexplainable event that cannot be replicated in a machine will occur it will occur when I am operating it. I could tell you stories but we do not have time today. This warning light came one and it was a warning light I have never seen lite up except when the engine is first started, you know when every light comes on to test if they are working. This light was for the auger that conveyed the grain from the separator to the bin. I looked all over to see what was causing the problem. I could not see a thing. And the worst thing was that I had nearly a full bin of wheat so most of what I needed to see was under the grain. We had to slowly remove the grain to reveal each component. We did not want to remove all the grain because then you would have to stand on narrow supports while hanging onto metal that had been sharpened by years of grain wearing it to a razor’s edge.

We finally got to where we could see the problem. A piece of metal about nine inches by three inches had lodged itself in the cog of a chain. A piece of metal that was a half of an inch thick. We do not know where it came from. We do not know how it got there. But it stopped everything. And we were wondering if this was one of those things that would cause a month long wait for repairs. We were able to remove the obstruction, and once it was removed everything seemed to work fine. We still do not know where it came from.

Why do I tell you this story? I tell you because harvest is important. It is the culmination of all of your labor. If you are an accountant harvest is tax season. If you work in retail, the holiday sales event on the Friday after Thanksgiving is harvest. If you are a research scientist, the day you submit your paper to the journal is harvest. It is the one thing all your labor, everything you have worked for comes together.

Jesus appointed seventy-two others to send out ahead of him. And as he sent them he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

There is a great deal that can be said about this passage. But I want us to focus just for a moment on the urgency of harvest. It is the culmination of labor, everything you have done up to this point revolves around this one thing. Jesus is sending out seventy-two of his disciples. He is sending them out ahead of him, and he tells them, the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

You might for a moment say, wait seventy-two, I thought there were only twelve disciples? You are correct, but remember there were multitudes of people that came to listen to Jesus. And many of those people like the twelve called by Jesus, followed them where ever they went. These were students, under the care of the disciples, you might call them disciples of the disciples. Jesus would teach the twelve, and the twelve would, when they had the time, go and teach their own students. This is the way of the rabbi. It is the way of any master and apprentice relationship, because one does not know if they truly understand something unless they try to teach it to someone else.

If we were to divide this number up, if each of the disciples had six disciples that would make seventy-two. Jesus would train his disciples, and he sent them out and they each found six people they could teach, but he sent them out two by two, so each pair found twelve disciples of their own. Jesus is showing us the importance of multiplication ministries. A group, any group, if it wants to grow the members must participate in bringing in new members. You cannot expect the one leader within the group to bring everyone in, because that leader is investing their time in you. The leader cannot go out finding new participants because you still need attention. But if you go out and reflect the teachings of the leader to others around you, what was once twelve quickly grows to seventy-two, and if each of those disciples make disciples. Soon what was once twelve within three cycles of going out, will grow to over five hundred. This is the number of people scripture says had seen and experienced the risen Lord.

There is more to this number. If you look at the scripture some translations will say seventy-two, where others will say seventy. Is this a contradiction? Not really because the number is symbolism. It points back to the history of Israel, and the story of God throughout the nations. When the sons of Jacob sold their brother Joseph into slavery, they eventually found themselves in need of food because a famine had occurred across the world. They had heard that Egypt had grain to spare so they went to Egypt to purchase grain to eat. Only to find themselves looking directly into the face of their brother. Seventy people from the house of Jacob went and settled in the land of Egypt with Joseph. And it is from these seventy that the nation emerged. Just as from the seventy that Jesus sent out the church would emerge.

There is more. There are three distinct stories of human fallen-ness in beginnings of scripture. The first is the fall within the garden when our first parents desired equality with God, possessing the knowledge of good and evil. The second was the fall that caused the flood, when the sons of God found the daughters of man to be attractive. And the third story of fallen-ness is the tower of Babel. After the confusion of the languages, it is said that the nations were divided among the sons of God, and that these nations populated the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. This number of nations was seventy-two.

So we have two numbers seventy and seventy-two, one represents Israel, and the other represents the nations. And as Jesus sends them out ahead of him he speaks of the harvest. The culmination of all his labor. What is the labor of God? What is the point and purpose of Israel? When God called Abraham, he called him to become the father of nations. He called the children of this father to be the light to all nations. And through them all nations would be brought back to the one true most high God. The harvest of God, the culmination of God’s labor and that of Israel is to bring all the nations, all the people groups to God. Even Simeon on the day Jesus was presented at the temple cried this praise at as he worshiped, “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people. He is the light to reveal God to the nations and he is the glory of your people Israel!”

Jesus appointed and sent out seventy-two others, two by two. He sent them into every town and place where he himself was about to go. He sent them with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Telling them, “carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.”

He tells them to be earnest in their mission. Do not get distracted, do not stop and talk to people but go to the town, go to the place you will have the most opportunity to be effective. I want you to think about that for a moment. Where are these thirty-six groups going to go? Are they going to the far east? Are they going to Rome? Are they going to Greece? No they are going home. They are going back to their hometowns, or to the town next to theirs. They are going to the people they know and they are going to talk with them. They are not going to worry about having food, money or a spare pair of shoes, because they are going to a place where the laws of hospitality are in place. If a friend comes to visit you are to provide for them. And if they are hospitable people all of their needs while they are traveling will be provided.

And if they go to a place, and they are received as a son of peace, you are to remain there. What does this mean? Peace is a sign of blessing, it is the absence of conflict. It is a state of mutual cooperation and profit. When humanity fell they entered into conflict. They entered into the rebellion that was already waging in the unseen realm. And the rebels within the heavenly hosts manipulated our first parent into thinking that God was holding something from them. Enmity became our state of being. We became enemies of God, because we could no longer trust that He had mutual profit on his mind.

When Jesus tells us to greet the house by saying “Peace be to this house!” He is telling them to bless the people of that house, as it is a greeting of hope and faith. It is saying to the ones that live there that as with the widow of Zarephath during the days of Elijah, as long as I remain with you, you will have enough.

And they are to remain there. They are to eat and drink what is provided to them, for the laborer deserves his wages. They are not to go house to house seeking the place with the greater wealth so that they can eat better, because that is not the point of our labor. Our labor is not for what we can receive our labor is reflect the light of God to the nations.

Our labor is to reflect the light of God.

The seventy-two went out and they returned. They entered the towns and villages, and they saw the might hand of God working in the lives of the people they met as they spoke, prayed, and cared for the sick among them. They came back to Jesus in joy saying, “Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name!” They had power. They felt as if they could do anything and everything. They thought that they were becoming like God.

In their ministry they felt as if they had harnessed the magic of Yahweh. That they could control the universe by the mere utterance of Jesus as if it were abracadabra. And if they say those magic words the universe would be at their command. Even the demons, the forces of evil are subject to us they say. We can conquer the world, we can demand that those living under the deception of demonic forces snap to attentions and obey our will.

I can understand their excitement. Ministry can be intoxicating. When I was in Ukraine, twenty years ago, I saw spiritual lights illuminating the faces of the people I spoke to. And each time I saw it I wanted to see more and more. I thought I was turning into some spiritual master as the people around me began to understand the way of God. But then something happened one of my students had a seizure. We are not sure why this occurred, but I have some suspicion that it was drug related. I became angry with God at that point. I was serving. I was teaching, talking, encouraging, praying over others. I was doing all this work, and someone was not obeying my words. I thought if I do not save this one student from darkness my entire life plans would unravel. How was I to get the desires of my heart if I cannot save this one person?

Jesus said to those joyful people, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.” This almost seems out of place. They are speaking of the amazing power they have in Jesus’s name and Jesus brings up the name of the greatest adversary. Why? Remember the number is symbolic. Remember the number of disciples is to remind us of the nation of Israel, and the restoration of the nations. Remember we are participating in a harvest not of our own, but we are under the direction of the Lord of the harvest. It is not our harvest, but God’s we are only there to help him reap the culmination of all his labor.

“I saw Satan fall like lightning.” Jesus said. If we are to believe the traditions surrounding Satan, or Lucifer, we would know that this being was the choir master of the heavenly hosts. He directed the worship, he was able to bring forth the best of all creation to bring honor and praise to God the Most High. Yet he began to think he needed the praise himself. He began to believe that he, Lucifer, was the one that brought about all the good things and deserved recognition. And he instigated a rebellion, where tradition says a third of the angels fell with him. A third of the angels is never spoken of in scripture or in ancient sacred writings. It is a myth that we have come up with because a third of the stars fall from the sky in the last days. But the point of the myth is that the rebellion is real and it is easy to begin to think that we are powerful in ourselves. We can begin to think that even the demons are subject to us if we use the right words. “Behold,” Jesus continues, “I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

There is a great deal of attention placed on signs and wonders. There are entire ministries devoted to training you to be a prophet, or a healer, or any number of things. I believe in these gifts, but I believe that it is God working through us when the miraculous happens, we are not actually involved beyond going out into the community ministering in Jesus’s name. We do not have power in ourselves. We are not the ones that bring the demons or evil spiritual forces to task. We are laborers in God’s harvest. It is God that has the power. “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Rejoice because God knows your name. Rejoice because the Most High God of the universe knows who you are, and has given you a place to participate in his harvest. Rejoice that God wants you to be in communion with you.

This week I helped my dad with harvest. The culmination of his year’s labor was right there around us. And we broke down. Everything came to a literal grinding holt. I thought I had caused harm. I thought I was about to ruin everything. I thought like I thought twenty years ago that I had failed and someone was left in the darkness because I failed to live up to God’s standard.

It is not about us. Sometimes people reject God. Sometimes entire people groups reject God. Sometimes our attention can be diverted from what is most important and be placed on something else. Sometimes we think we must cast out demons, we must heal, we must or God will not be praised. But that is not the point. We are only called to go, and enter the house and say, “Peace be to this house.” We are to go eating and drinking, caring for the sick, and teaching about the kingdom has come near. We are to accept hospitality and give hospitality. And rejoice that God knows our names.

Let us live in that Peace. Let us be bearers of Peace, and conduits of hope.

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