Luke chapter 10 and verse 21. It's just a short reading today. In that hour, Jesus rejoiced
in spirit and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent
and has revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me
of my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father,
and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will
reveal him. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this short reading from his word. Today, we come to another one
of those many verses, those passages that are strewn throughout Scripture,
where the writer, or in this case, the speaker, who is the
Lord Jesus Christ, emphatically asserts God's discriminating
grace and sovereign purpose in salvation, takes and leaves the
initiative in the whole of salvation in the hands of God the Father. So much so indeed, that we wonder
how it can be missed or misunderstood by any who read the Bible except
those who are willfully blind or sinfully contrary to God's
word. But before we come to what I
want to say on that matter, let me first make a comment about
what we read here concerning the Lord Jesus rejoicing in his
spirit. We read in the verse 21, in that
hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit. In that hour, that hour of the
70 returning and telling the Lord all that they had seen as
they had ministered in his name and ministered his message to
the towns and villages to whom he had sent them. In that hour
when they were able to say that they had cast out demons in the
name of the Lord Jesus and the Lord said that he had seen Satan
cast down from heaven, in that hour we're told that the Lord
rejoiced in his spirit. And I can remember as a youngster
no doubt guilty of some excessive levity or cheekiness, being told
off rather sharply by an older person and reminded that Jesus
was a man of sorrows and that while we read of him weeping,
we never hear of him laughing. Well, It's funny what sticks
in your minds, but I do confess that each time I read in Scripture
about Jesus rejoicing in his heart, or as here, rejoicing
in spirit, I remember that gentle, if somewhat misapplied reprimand
with an awareness that my Saviour knew both sadness and joy in
his life. And I hope it won't offend any
of you if I say that I'm confident the Lord Jesus laughed and smiled
as much, if not more, than he grieved and wept. The Lord Jesus
was good company The Lord was attractive to people. And here
Luke tells us that he rejoiced. He shared his disciples' joy
and enthusiasm upon their return from their ministry. He acknowledged
their cheerful disposition, their buoyant attitude at the success
of their preaching. and he had joy in his own soul
at their triumphs. He understood the significance
of the overthrow of the devil in the hearts of the sinners
to whom these men had preached, of demons being cast out and
being subject to the disciples' ministry that was enacted in
Jesus' name. But I think, too, that the Lord's
positive response to the disciples' return, his rejoicing in his
spirit, was his realisation that the church was on the threshold
of the great gospel expansion that soon would characterise
the apostolic age and beyond. even to today. What had the Lord
done here? He had sent out 70 missionaries. He had sent out 70 preachers. And when they came back and told
him the success of their ministry, the Lord rejoiced in his soul
because he realised that he was now, they were now, the church
was now on the threshold of this great gospel expansion. And that expansion has continued
through the preaching of that self-same gospel that the Seventy
carried. by those who were preached to
and who received their word, those who in turn passed that
to faithful men and that ministry, that message, that gospel has
continued, has cascaded down through the generations to today,
even to you and to me. And the Lord Jesus Christ rejoiced
in his heart. We speak about the Lord rejoicing
and being satisfied when on the cross he saw the travail of his
soul, the people for whom he was suffering. But I don't think
that the Lord's joy was restricted to that one moment. I think that
when the disciples here came back with their positive message,
the Lord rejoiced to see you and me and all of those who were
converted through this ministry. Seeing the joy in his disciples'
faces sparked rejoicing in Christ's own soul. Joy at the prospect
of the harvest that was coming, of the great numbers of converts
who would be called following the Saviour's death and resurrection
and ascension into glory, and the multitudes who would be gathered
in at that time and their entrance into his Father's presence. And
I dare say that the Lord was anticipating his bride at that
moment, in this hour. He was anticipating his bride
and it thrilled his heart and rejoiced his soul to see the
process now begun. And the Lord shared the joy of
these disciples. These disciples would themselves
comprise the first wave of Gospel preachers to go out into all
the world and preach that message. They, as they returned, full
of joy at what they had seen, they had seen the future. And
whether they realised it or not, they had tasted the early success
of this gospel harvest. They had seen the first fruits,
if you like, of the crop of converts, the great congregation who would
be brought to salvation under the preaching of their message.
And so the Lord rejoiced with them. And we've been speaking much
in recent weeks about the Lord Jesus, claiming his covenant
rights as he prayed to his father. Particularly we've been thinking
about John 17 and the intercessory high priestly prayer of the Lord.
We've carried that on now into the intercessory work that is
spoken of by Paul in Romans chapter eight. So that I'm going to suggest
to you today that here we see that same attitude prevailing
in the Lord's own thinking. that as we have been thinking
about Christ's covenant rights and how there would be many brought
in as he laid that responsibility back into his father's hands,
here he is expressing his loving desire that all those given to
him in the everlasting covenant would indeed be with him where
he is. And he saw that this was the
beginning of it. was rejoicing because he saw
that he was handing over, as it were, into the hands of the
Father, into the hands of the Spirit, the responsibility and
role of quickening and converting the redeemed. Gathering in the
elect, now that he had accomplished or soon would finish the task,
his own particular work of redemption, that which he had been given
to do in the covenant agreement of salvation and grace. And I'm
sure that was the cause, or at least it contributed to the Saviour's
great joy in his soul at this hour. But I started by saying we were
going to talk about the particular sovereign grace of God that is
expressed in this passage. So that's what I'm going to do
for a moment or two now. But here we can see also in this
verse, not only that Christ rejoiced at this work, but that he attributed
it to God's discriminating grace and his sovereign purpose in
salvation. Now, there are three principles
of God's revelation of himself that we accept and believe to
be true as sovereign grace believers. Firstly, God's will must be fulfilled
and his purpose must be accomplished. Secondly, God does all his pleasure
His pleasure is the sovereign and independent salvation of
individuals. Let me put that another way.
God's grace is not contingent on our actions or our needs. He does not save us because we
deserve salvation and he does not respond either to our merit
or our misery. He does what he pleases. and
he is pleased to choose some of fallen mankind to salvation
while passing by others and leaving them in their sin and rebellion.
So the first thing was God's will must be fulfilled. The second
one was that he does all his pleasure. And thirdly, all that
he does is right and righteous and holy and perfect. And I make these points because
here, in these couple of verses today, the Lord Jesus preaches
a sermon on sovereign grace to these disciples. And that's a
good lesson for those of us who are preachers. Sermons don't
need to be long. But he preaches a sermon that
speaks to them of the success of their evangelical ministry
being attributed to God the Father. The success that they had witnessed
was taken here by the Lord and attributed to God the Father. Now do you remember last week
we were speaking about the fact that the Lord told his disciples
not to rejoice that the devils obeyed them, but that their names
were written in heaven. That was in verse 20. And this
is just a continuation of that same theme. Believers rejoice
not in what we see happening around about us as far as the
gathering in of the church is concerned, but in the fact that
this is the accomplishment of God's sovereign purpose. So here
the Lord dedicates all the praise and all the thanksgiving of the
church to the love of God and the will of the Father in election. And Christ says I thank thee,
O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes,
even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. What things?
The things that the disciples, the seventy, had been preaching
when they had been sent out. Things to do with the Son of
Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his ministry of salvation
and reconciliation. The Lord Jesus points the disciples,
the preachers of the gospel, who shortly will carry this message
to the ends of the earth, that its spread and its success and
its revelation and its application to men and women and boys and
girls would be according to God's purpose and his righteousness. God the Father, says Christ,
who is the Lord of heaven and earth, hides these things, these
gospel truths, from the wise and prudent. He hides them from
the wise and prudent. Wise and prudent in their own
natural wisdom, which is the foolishness of fallen man. While
at the same time, God the Father, who is Lord of heaven and earth,
reveals to others, to those who are babes, Babes for their meekness,
babes for their teachableness, the true identity of Christ,
the son of peace, the bringer of mercy, the provider of forgiveness
by his cleansing blood. The one who has revealed all
the doctrines of grace and who encapsulates and manifests these
truths by his coming into the world to save sinners. The Lord's
disciples could not fail to understand this message. It was being taught
and applied in a very practical and applicable way. All the success
of their effort, in which they now rejoiced, was to be traced
back to the Father, to God the Father. It was to be attributed
to what seemed good in his sight. It wasn't the free will of the
hearer, it wasn't the persuasive power of the preacher, it wasn't
the peculiar circumstances of the particular situation that
prevailed at the time. That didn't determine the outcome
but the sovereign purpose of God and what seemed good in his
sight. In verse 22, the Lord says, Now
if I'm not mistaken, this statement here, that was part of the Lord's explanation
of the sovereign purpose of God and that which seemed good in
his sight, that this statement, if I'm not mistaken, is much
like those verses that we have been reading recently in John
17. Verses like For I have given
unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received
them, and have known surely that I came from thee, and they have
believed that thou didst send me. Verses like, And the glory
which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be
one, even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they
may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me. These
verses are speaking about the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ
had committed to him the fullness of the revelation of God and
that these mediatorial responsibilities had been committed into the hands
of Christ alone as the God-man to be revealed by him when he
came into the world. What may we know of God? only
that which the Lord Jesus Christ has revealed of him. What may
we know of the Lord Jesus Christ? Only that which has been committed
to him within the terms of the covenant of grace as his responsibilities
to be accomplished. And when he came into the world,
he brought the full and final revelation of God to man. everything concerning our salvation
as to our pardon for sin and cleansing from sin and redemption
from the curse of the law and our reconciliation with God and
our freedom in Christ and all our fitness for the divine presence
clothed with the very righteousness of God himself is delivered,
is declared and delivered by the Lord Jesus Christ. It was
put in his hands in the covenant and it was his role to reveal
it to men. These were his obligations in
the everlasting covenant of grace. And only the Father knew the
full weight of responsibility that hung upon our Saviour in
the eternal purpose of grace. And similarly, only the Son can
know the Father and His everlasting love and elective choice and
perfect holiness and wisdom and glory and majesty and those to
whom the Son will reveal Him. So how blessed we are, brothers
and sisters, to be amongst those to whom the Father has been revealed
by the Son in this ministry, in his death and in his gospel. We could speak like the Queen
of Sheba and say, the half hath not been told. And that's true,
because that's another aspect of what the Lord has been teaching
us in recent days. Has not the Son, our Saviour,
yet to teach us many more things about his Father? He will do
so in time, I trust, on earth and he certainly will do so in
heaven and in eternity when we reach there. He will teach us
about his Father as he gives us increasing access into his
presence, as he mediates between God and his people, as he advocates
for us and takes God's Word and brings it back to us, and as
he intercedes for us and opens our understanding to the infinite
glory of God in the ages yet to come. These are our blessings. These are the things which we
have and hold now in time and we have and shall forever rejoice
in in heaven. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
the revealer of them all to us. May the Lord bless these thoughts
today. Amen.