The Paradox of Discipleship, Luke 10:20-24

I’ve titled today’s message the Paradox of Discipleship. And I guess in light of all the Duck Dynasty hysteria recently, we should define what paradox means.  For all you Duck Dynasty fans out there,  a paradox  does not refer to a couple of mallards.  But according to the dictionary, the word paradox means a seemingly contradictory statement that in reality expresses a truth.

Jesus was a master at using what seemed to be paradoxical statements to teach spiritual truth.   For instance, His Sermon on the Mount was full of them.  In Matt. 5:3 Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  All of those are seemingly contradictory, paradoxical statements that teach a spiritual truth.

Now as we come to this passage today, we are going to look at three principles of discipleship that seem paradoxical.  That is, principles of discipleship that seem contrary to human wisdom and understanding, and consequently requires on our part a  complete reliance upon divine guidance if we are to really be true disciples. 

The first principle that is brought out in our text is the paradox of joy.  There was a song that Switchfoot did a few years ago which was titled, “Happy is a yuppie word.”  And I would add that the pursuit of happiness is the mantra of the world.  Our country was actually founded on the principle that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, though I doubt that the founding fathers envisioned how far into hedonism it would take us.  I’m sure you have heard many a parent proclaim, as I have, that all that they hope for is that their kids will be happy.  That seems to be thought of as life’s highest achievement by the world.  And unfortunately, that expectation of happiness has pervaded Christianity as well to the point that many people think that happiness is equated with being in God’s will.  And to that end, they expect God to give them all the things that they think will make them happy.  They expect that the fruit of discipleship is worldly happiness. The Bible doesn’t teach that, however it does teach that a disciple will have joy.

But for a Christian, joy is not necessarily equated with happiness.  Joy is enduring, while happiness is often fleeting. That is the problem with some of the newer Bible versions interpretation of the word “blessed” used in the Sermon on the Mount.  They say that blessed should be interpreted as “happy.”  Far too many preachers teach that happiness is a condition of the believer.  But I would say that though we may have moments of happiness from time to time in our walk with the Lord, it is not the enduring characteristic of discipleship.  Jesus warned us that if we followed Him we would be hated, persecuted, and would endure tribulation.  Those sorts of thing doesn’t necessarily bring about happiness, yet James tells us to consider them as joy.

So, joy is an enduring characteristic of a disciple.  Because joy is tied not to the moment, or to the temporal, but to a view of the eternal.  See, I can be like Jonah and be happy in my circumstances when a large plant sprung up and offered him temporary shade.  But when the plant withered and died, he became unhappy and bitter.  And God rebuked Jonah for that.  Because he cared more for the temporary plant which brought him pleasure than he did for the eternal souls of the men of Nineveh.  See, joy has an eternal perspective, whereas happiness has a temporal perspective. Joy is God's gift to us in anticipation of heavenly glory. And we can realize it now if we come to fully understand and trust in the promises of God for that eternal glory.

Now the 70 disciples, if you remember, had come back from their mission of healing and preaching, and it says they returned with joy, saying that “even the demons are subject to us in your name.”  They were really happy that their mission trip had been a great success and that they had even had power over demons.   And Jesus responded to them in vs. 20, ““Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”

Now we talked last week about what that meant.  But we need to revisit it in order to understand this next passage because it is related to Christ’s joy. But the gist of what we discussed last week was that the disciples were rejoicing in their experience.  And as we stated earlier, happiness in a temporal thing is often short lived.  But true joy comes in an eternal viewpoint. 

See, the disciples were rejoicing in their experience.  They were rejoicing in their gifts, in the power that had been given to them to do these mighty works.  And Jesus rebuked them for that.  Because the wisdom born out of experience is not trustworthy.  It is not reliable.  Because experience is focused on the wrong things, it’s focused on the human element.  As Christians, it is easy to get sidetracked on the physical manifestations, the physical gifts, the power or the knowledge we think we possess.  We need to realize that experiences can be deceiving. 

Almost 20 years ago when I went through a mental, physical and financial breakdown I was having almost hourly panic attacks, and I had to learn that I could not trust my experience.  I felt like I was dying.  My mind felt like I was going insane.  My experience was my heart was about to explode and my body was sweating profusely and the room seemed to be spinning. I learned through that not to trust my experience.  But to trust in the promises of God.

So Jesus said don’t rejoice that the spirits are subject to you.  Don’t rejoice that you have some gift or power or even some measure of earthly success.  We tend to measure success according to earthly barometers, don’t we?  How many members we have, how big our church building is, etc.  But instead, Jesus said, rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.  See, that is not something you can experience. It’s not something that you can control or do yourself.  It’s something that you have to trust God to accomplish for you.  You cannot see it, you cannot touch it, you can’t sense it, and you can’t see your name written there.  The world tells us to trust science, what can be measured, evaluated, sensed, felt.  But God tells us to trust what cannot be seen. Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Joy is found in the trusting faith that the sovereign God has providentially, mercifully, graciously chosen to pluck you out of obscurity, gave sight to your eyes, gave life to your dead spirit, and revealed Himself to you that you may know Him, that you can know that you have been saved by Him.  I find joy that my security rests not on some experience I had, or some power that I have, or gift that I claim, but on the eternal promise of God to save Me through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  I find joy that my name was written in God’s book of life with the indelible ink of Jesus blood that can never be erased.  That is how we have joy.  We have joy in the eternal security that our name is written in God’s book and nothing can take us out of God’s hand. That God cannot deny Himself.  He will not change His mind.

Joy for the believer then is not focused earthly matters, is not found in earthly circumstances. There is no promise that becoming a Christian is going to provide for good circumstances in life. It doesn't mean that coming to Christ is going to be the end of your troubles, the end of your struggles, the end of your sorrows in this human world, that is not the case. What joy means is that your eternity is settled, that a faithful God is preparing more than you could ever comprehend for you and you need to live in the light of that eternal hope that will not fade away.

The second aspect of the paradox of joy is found in vs. 21, “At that very time Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.” 

You know, this is the only time in the New Testament that we see a description of Jesus’ joy.  There is a lot of imagery in the Bible of Jesus weeping, or of Jesus being saddened or grieving.  But this is the only place where we see Jesus joyful.  And yet I believe that Jesus was always joyful.  I’m not sure He was always happy, in the sense that we think of happiness, such as laughing.  But I believe Jesus is joyful because joy is a divine attribute. In Zephaniah 3:17 it says, "The Lord your God is in your midst. He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy."  In the New Testament, we are told of the fruits of the Spirit, and one of them is joy.  You cannot give something that you do not have.  So joy is certainly a characteristic of God.

And I couldn’t help but compare that with the gods of Greek mythology and some of the other pagan gods you might be familiar with. They were often pictured as being angry, or at the very least, spiteful and something that had to be appeased.  But our God is joyful.  We sometimes picture God as angry at sin.  And there is a righteous anger.  But He is not an angry God.  In other words, God’s joy is not diminished by sin and evil.  Rather, He wants us to share in His joy. 

And that is the source of Jesus’ joy here as He welcomes back the disciples.  Oh, their joy may be a little misplaced, but still Jesus rejoices because He realizes they are the purpose for which He came.  His joy is focused on the same thing that He told the disciples that their joy should be focused on; their eternal salvation.  That salvation was what He came to procure for those that believe on Him.  Hebrews 12:2 says, “Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Notice His joy was found in spite of suffering, in spite of shame.  And the same is to be true of His followers.  We are not greater than our Master.  We can find joy even in the fellowship of His sufferings, as we keep our focus on the eternal rather than the temporal. 

Secondly, let’s consider the paradox of wisdom.  And this principle is found in vs.21 and 22. Jesus prayed, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” 

Listen, spiritual wisdom is impossible to understand in the human realm because man cannot ascertain the wisdom of God. Isaiah 55:8 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”  The Bible says that man cannot ascertain the wisdom of God because it seems to be foolishness to him.  And so thinking himself to be wise, man became a fool.  But 1Cor. 1:25 says that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

So this lack of wisdom puts man is in a dire predicament.  Because as  1Cor. 2:14 declares, “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.”   See, God is not just trying to be contrary just to be ornery or to make it difficult for us.  The fact of the matter is that in our fallen nature we are without hope, so far removed from understanding that we are hopelessly lost and spiritually blind.  And without divine help, we would be unable to find our way out of the darkness. 

Here is the paradox of wisdom; to know the truth you must recognize that your natural wisdom is worthless without supernatural revelation through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that spiritual wisdom has been hidden by God from the wise.  It is hidden from the wise and revealed unto infants.  Therefore, it is not according to human ingenuity that we discern the truth, but according to divine dispensation, according to God’s revelation.

You know, James 1:5 says that if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of God… Not ask his broker, not ask your girlfriend, or your business associates.  Ask God.  Because I will tell you that there isn’t wisdom in human institutions.  Wisdom is the province of God.  And before you run around and make decisions and then expect God to work it all out for you, you need to make sure that you have first of all humbly beseeched the source of wisdom.

I’ll tell you, the greatest difficulty I see in ministry is people who think that they are mature Christians, because they have a little knowledge,  or even may have experienced a little power, and yet they are deceived either in doctrine or in practice.  They have a little truth and a little error.  And sooner or later their error and their arrogance leads them  astray from the truth. They trust human wisdom rather than God’s wisdom.  They’ve listened to people who gave them advice rather than sought God’s counsel. And sometimes the people that are dispensing knowledge aren’t to be trusted.  Not every preacher is sent from God.  Not every prophet speaks the word of God.  We need to be careful who we listen to. 

The secret to wisdom is becoming humble and recognizing that you know nothing unless the Spirit of Jesus reveals it to you. You need to become like an infant, totally dependent upon being fed by the Spirit of God through the word of God.  Even if an angel should speak to you a gospel contrary to our gospel, Paul said, don’t listen to him.  Because Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  And many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

It doesn’t make any difference how many books you read, or what classes you have taken, or how many degrees you have behind your name, if you aren’t being taught by the Spirit of God through the word of God, then your wisdom is foolishness.  So here is another paradox, we need to beware of false teachers, yet at the same time we need to be taught. Rom. 10:14, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”  So how do we discern who is to be trusted and who isn’t?  The secret to discernment is humbling yourself before the almighty God and acknowledging your spiritual bankruptcy and begging Him to teach you and lead you into all truth.  Not seeking teachers that tell you what you want to hear.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you.  I am filled with joy when I find a Christian who wants to be a disciple and has a humble heart, an open heart, a desire to learn and then is obedient to what they are taught.  They come with a childlike faith.  That is what Jesus says is necessary to have wisdom. Prov. 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

The last paradox we will look at today is closely related to the previous one, and it is the paradox of revelation. Look at vs. 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.’”  Now this statement follows right on the heels of Jesus saying in vs. 21 that no one can know the Father or the Son unless Jesus reveals it to him.  In other words, we can’t even become saved unless God opens our eyes and plants faith in our hearts.  This is the doctrine of election.  And many people have difficulty in accepting that.  But the Bible clearly teaches election and predestination.  Election cannot be understood, it must be accepted by faith, and though it seems paradoxical, we also hold the doctrine of free will, that whosoever will may come.  We have to be willing to believe in the sovereignty of  an infinite God who has no beginning and no end is able to know the beginning and the end, and therefore has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. And we also have to believe in the mercy of a gracious God who says that whosoever will may come. 

Notice that God has chosen to reveal Himself to these simple disciples, just ordinary men and women that were not skilled, not particularly gifted, or talented, just ordinary people that He chose to empower to be His representatives.   And what a contrast that is  with the statement that many prophets and kings had wanted to see what they had seen and had not, and to hear what they had heard and had not. 1 Corinthians 1:27, “but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.”

And notice that Jesus ties that revelation back to the word blessing.  It leads us back to the issue of our joy, doesn’t it?  Our joy is found  in that God has chosen us.  That He has written our names in the book of life.  And that we are fortunate enough to have received the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. 

That is what Jesus is saying here.  Prophets and kings had been foretold of some things concerning what was to come, but they longed to see what we see.  Elisha and Elijah, Moses and Joshua,  King David and King Solomon and all the major and minor prophets had longed to see the fullness of revelation that we have realized in Jesus Christ and His word.  Not only do we have the full realization of Jesus Christ and the full revelation of the New Testament, but we have the resource of the Holy Spirit to live in us and teach us and strengthen us. 

What a joy should be ours when we realize that it’s not by power, not by might, not by position of prophet or king that we get to experience all the joy of  salvation, but by the election and provision of God and the indwelling of the Spirit. In Zechariah chapter 4 there is the record of the vision of Zerubbabel.  And in the vision he saw a golden lampstand which was supposed to be in the temple.  But what was unusual about it was that there were two olive trees that were supplying the olive oil for the lamps.  And when Zerubbabel asked what it meant, the angel said, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.”  So what God was saying there was that the supply for knowing God, for following God, for living for God, comes from God.  It’s not by might, it’s not by power, but by the Holy Spirit. 

Those 70 disciples had the benefit that the kings and prophets wished for and never had; that is the presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who taught them and empowered them.  Jesus was the physical manifestation of God, so that He could say, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  Today we don’t have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but we have the promise of His Spirit within us, and that is even better. Jesus said in John 16:7,  “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”  And then in vs. 13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

Just as Jesus was the physical manifestation of God on earth, so the Holy Spirit is the spiritual manifestation of God in us.  And what is even more remarkable about that is that now God has chosen us to be the physical representation of Jesus Christ to the world.  In our flesh it isn’t possible.  But Jesus sent His Spirit to live in our hearts that we might do the works of God.  That we might have the power supply in us to know God, to understand His word, and to live the life that He has commissioned us to live. 

In John 15: 11, Jesus told His disciples, “these things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”  See, it comes full circle doesn’t it?  The revelation of God produces our joy.  And so our joy is focused on the eternal security of our salvation, our wisdom comes in recognizing our inability to know anything without divine intervention, and then God Himself provides that revelation concerning Himself through His word, and through the power of His Spirit who He has given to live in us.  And that brings us to an even fuller joy, that the more we know of Him, the more we love Him, and the more we want to serve Him.  The more we realize our complete dependency upon Him, the more we grow in Him and the more joy we find in service to Him, and in turn the more joy we bring to Christ.  In all of these things, our focus must always stay on Him.  He is our supply for every thing, for every need, for every blessing.  Let’s pray.