Reasons Jesus Rejoices, Part 5 | Reasons for Rejoicing

Luke 10:21-24

We are going to return one more time to Luke 10:21 to 24. Luke 10:21 to 24. If you’ll turn there in your Bibles. Back in verse 17, when the gospel messengers that Jesus sent out, they returned from their gospel mission, with joy, as we studied and saw. When Jesus entered into their joy, he informed their joy, deepened their joy, and then put the focal point of joy on eternal, saving realities. He told them in Luke 10:20, “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

You know, that is some insightful, pastoral counsel, isn’t it? “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Whatever happiness or sadness you face in this earth, whatever joys or sorrows that you encounter in this physical, temporal world, and, I think, as I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading on this subject lately, I see that in the modern world and especially in our moment, in our time, people feel more isolated and lonely than ever.

 And it’s not just, it’s not just because of technology and smart phones that isolate everybody from one another, but it’s just through the ravaging effects of sin and divorce and destruction of families and all kinds of sin perpetrated against one another.

 It’s not just political parties that are at war with each other these days, it’s everybody. It’s at the grass roots level, all the way up to the top. And all that anger, and fury, and wrath, it enters, comes from the heart, it comes out of the mouth, and it results in isolation, and sadness, and sorrow of loneliness. Total pain.

Whatever joys and sorrows, as a Christian, that you face in this life, center your thoughts on this thought, that Jesus said there, “Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Past tense, perfect tense, in fact. Have been written. Have been inscribed. Rejoice in that fact, and as the hymn says, “All the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”

And it’s that thought, that Jesus rejoiced in, in that same hour. Rejoicing in the Holy Spirit. Giving praise to God. Follow along as I read in verses 21 and 22. “In that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you,’” or “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to,” little babes, “little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will,” or such thus it was pleasing for you to do.

Verse 22, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” So, Jesus praises God for who he is and what he’s done, namely, exercising his sovereign will to conceal and reveal. To hide salvation truth from the proud and to give it instead to the humble. Literally, to the little babes. He praises God for why he did that, namely, because it pleased him to do so. The blessed prerogative of absolute sovereignty is this, that God does whatever he wants to do. He’s pleased to do his will.

So, Jesus rejoices, and these are the outline points we kind of followed. Kind of, at the macro level. Jesus rejoices; number one, in who God is; number two, in what God has done; and number three, in why God has done it. Jesus rejoices in how God has done it. That is to say, God has exercised his sovereign will to conceal and reveal saving truth. Both of them, both of those things accomplished through the mystery of the incarnation, verse 22, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or “who the Father is except the Son.”

So, we were talking about this last time. That the father and son possess mutual, reciprocal, infinite knowledge because both are divine persons. They share the same divine substance, the essence of deity. What these divine persons know, the knowledge that they possess, that is an exclusive sphere of knowledge. The son is known only by the father. The father is known only by the son.

 This is a trinitarian sphere of knowledge, exclusively comprehended by members of the trinity and by them alone. Access of entry into this sphere of knowledge is the express right and ability of trinitarian persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other words, if you do not occupy a place in the trinity, you’re out. No access for non-trinitarian persons. There are three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So that means all created things, locked out. All angels and all demons, locked out. All mankind, locked out. All creation, locked out of that exclusive sphere of divine knowledge. Why? Because no creature can bridge the infinite gap that exists between himself and his creator, unless that is, unless the son of God, according to his sovereign prerogative, “all things have been handed over to me by my Father by his gracious will,” unless he should choose to unlock the door and bring someone in.

Look at the end of verse 22 again, “no one knows who the Son is except the Father, who the Father is except the Son and,” What? End of the sentence, we find a crack in the door, don’t we? A sliver of hope. This is an entry point into the infinite being of divinity. End of the sentence, a coordinate clause of divine grace, “And anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” For those the son has chosen, to them and to them alone, this door doesn’t just crack open, he swings it wide open to the infinite, everlasting joy of the knowledge of God. To those whom Jesus has chosen, he is so pleased to reveal the glory of his father, to them. Let that settle in on your minds and hearts for a moment.

He’s like an older brother to us, Jesus is, who, he’s the only son of his eternal father, the only begotten son. So, we, then, coming into the father’s house, we are like adopted children, and we’re being introduced by the son into a brand-new family. We’ve been passed around from foster home to foster home. We’ve been a ward of this state, under the authority of Satan himself.

We’re outcasts. We’re aliens and strangers to covenants and promises. We have no hope because we have no God in the world. And then God did something. He sent his son, and his son chose to reveal the father to us. And Jesus, our older brother, when he brings us in, he brings us all in, to everything. He rejoices to show us around the house, as it were. To reveal all of its hidden delights. To uncover all of its secret treasures. He tells us where the food is. Opens up all the cabinets.

There’s not a hint of jealousy on Jesus’ part. There’s not the slightest bit of reluctance or hesitancy. There’s no will, on his part, to withhold anything from us, because the son knows, better than anyone, that the father’s love is infinite and eternal. So, it’s for the glory of the father, who he rejoices to glorify. He loves to talk about the father. He loves to rejoice in his father, in his father’s will, his father’s exploits, his father’s acts, his father’s testimonies, everything. He rejoices in the father. And so, it’s for the glory of the father, and it’s for the joy of the son, to make all things known to his chosen siblings, us. Adopted into the family. Whom the father has adopted by his predestinating grace.

That takes us to a fifth and final point, in that larger outline. Jesus rejoices, number five, in who God has chosen. And he rejoices in who he has chosen and in the privilege that is theirs. Look at verses 23 to 24, “Then turning to the disciples Jesus said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.”

Now, we’re gonna unpack those verses. And if you’re here today, and you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, if you have embraced the gospel, if you rejoice in following Christ in a self-denying, cross bearing life, if you rejoice in following Jesus as the absolute and only sovereign lord of your life, rejoicing to do whatever he has commanded you, then guess what?

In the Holy Spirit, in praise to God, Jesus rejoices over you. He rejoices over you. You have every reason to look past any temporal matter and find joy and encouragement and all assurance in what Jesus rejoices in, in these verses.

So, as we finish our study today, it’s been my three-fold prayer. Number one: that your faith will be anchored deeply in the conviction of the truth. I pray that your faith will be anchored deeply in the conviction of the truth. And number two, I pray that your love will be strengthened in salvation joy. That you will deeply love the lord who saved you.

 And number three, I pray that your hope will be spurred on by an insatiable longing for Christ. Peter said, you, “Even though you haven’t seen him, you love him.” You rejoice in expressible joy and hope of glory. I want you to rejoice in the one that your eyes have not seen and look forward to the day when your eyes will see him.

So, with that in mind, let’s get into our outline. Point one, Jesus rejoices over, number one: the amazing privilege of visual perspective. Notice in verse 23, how all believing privilege starts with this eyewitness testimony, what those particular eyes had seen. So, Jesus says there in verse 23, “Then turning to the disciples he said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.’” He turned to the disciples. He, he turned aside to these disciples.

 So, we have the seventy-two messengers, of course. We have the twelve Apostles, of course. At this point, we also want to understand that there are female disciples present, too. Some of whom are named, actually, back in Luke 8:2-3. And Jesus turned to them. He turned away from the larger crowed that was present, before whom he had just given praise to God. He turned away from them. Among, among that crowd is an unbelieving lawyer, verse 25. We’re going to meet him, next time we come back to this passage.

 But he sought a private audience with his disciples. And he wanted to deliver to them a private, intimate beatitude. This one is for their ears only. Blessed, it’s that word, makarios, it means, privileged, even honored, to be specially, uniquely endowed with divine favor, blessed and therefore happy, content, filled with joy. That’s the idea of blessedness.

We’ve seen four beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, as we studied through Luke 6:20 to 22. Blessed are those who poor, hungry, weeping, despised. Another one in Luke 7:23, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” We’re going to find another beatitude in Luke 11:28, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

But there is a notable difference between those beatitudes and this one. Jesus does not pronounce blessedness upon these disciples in a direct way. The pronouncement here is indirect. He blesses not them, but their eyes, and inasmuch as they possess the right eyes, through the medium of vision, they themselves are counted as blessed.

 By calling attention to the organ of sight, the eyes, Jesus is focusing on the unique privilege of these particular disciples, because they’ve been granted the privilege of being eyewitnesses to all that had happened. They had a visual perspective that’s really unparalleled and unrepeatable. There’s only one time that Jesus came to suffer for sins. This is it. So they were there, in an unrepeatable event. Seeing things that are not going to happen again.

We know from Acts 1:21 and 22, that there were at least some of these seventy-two, in addition to the twelve, who’d been with Jesus ever since the baptism of John. All the way to the, from that time, all the way to the day that Jesus ascended into heaven, they saw all of this. If we were to review what’s already been seen in Luke’s Gospel, it’s amazing the kinds of things that they had seen. We realize, theirs was an absolutely astounding privilege.

It started the baptism of Jesus. They saw the heavens opened, Holy Spirit descended on him, in bodily form, like a dove. They heard a voice from Heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” And that incredible moment of divine revelation opened a floodgate of revelation and power in Jesus’ ministry.

 Some of these disciples were there, Luke 4:36, might have been there to see Jesus cast out the demon from the Capernaum synagogue, and it says there, that they were amazed, amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.”

Peter, all who were with him on the boat, Luke 5:9, they were astonished at the large catch of fish they had taken. They saw him, now, as something completely different than they had previously seen, just minutes ago. Saw him completely different, once they witnessed that miracle, that power. They recognized they were in the presence of holiness.

 When Jesus forgave the sin of the paralytic. Healed him. Luke 5:26 says, “Amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled,” controlled, “with awe, saying, ‘We have seen extraordinary things today.’” They saw Jesus raise the widow’s son from the dead at Nain, Luke 7:16. “Fear seized them all, they glorified God, saying, ‘God has visited his people.’”

In a squall on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus rebuked the wind, the raging waves. They ceased. There was a calm, flat surface of water. They were afraid at what they’d just witnessed, Luke 8:25. They were terrified in the storm. Even more terrified in the presence of this holiness. And “they marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who is this, commands even the winds and the water and they obey him.’”

 The disciples watched Jesus rescue a young boy from demonic possession. Luke 9:43 says, “All were astonished at the majesty of God, and they were all marveling at everything he was doing.” Blessed are those eyes, indeed! Such amazing sights that those eyes had seen! Such incredible things they’d witnessed. Supernatural acts happening right in front of their eyes. All at the hands of Jesus, taking place before their very eyes. This is the unique privilege of these eyewitnesses.

When Jesus turned to these disciples, privately pronouncing blessedness upon their eyes, we need to notice, you probably can’t see it as much in the English, but I’ll tell you, that he used present tense verbs. Present tense verbs, doesn’t sound as clean to our ears, to maybe translate it that way, but we can more literally render the statement here, blessed are the eyes that are seeing what you are seeing, as in continuously seeing, in an ongoing experience, as in, there’s still more to come. As amazing as the experiences of the recent past had been for these disciples, the best was yet to come.

I like the way John MacArthur summarizes it when he says this, “The things they were privileged to see include the great truths that the Messiah had come, the salvation of God had been revealed, the work of redemption accomplished, the promise of kingdom offered, all the Old Testament prophecies, promises, and covenants fulfilled in Christ, who would make the final offering for sin. Satan had met his conqueror, demons were completely dominated, disease vanquished, nature submissive, death defeated through Christ and forgiveness and eternal life granted to all who believe.” That’s what their eyes saw.

The astounding miracles that they had already seen, all those things were validating the work and the words that Jesus had yet to speak and accomplish. Things that they would see in the near future. And Jesus is saying, blessed are the eyes that are seeing that, too. All of it.

 Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15: 1 to 6, he unpacked the gospel, there. And he said that eyewitness testimony is really an essential matter of faithful gospel proclamation. He told the Corinthians, “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received” and then we’re familiar with the content that follows, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, and he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

“But then, he appeared to Cephas and then the twelve. He appeared to more than 500 brothers at once. He appeared to James and to all the Apostles, and last of all, the risen Lord Jesus appeared to Paul.” Two verses on the substance and the content of the gospel: Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Four verses on post-resurrection appearances to eyewitnesses. Paul is definitely highlighting the vital importance of eyewitness testimony. Why is this so important? What is he trying to tell us? Just this.

The Christian faith is not based upon the musings of some enlightened guru. It’s not. Our faith isn’t resting on the shifting sands of mystical thinking. It’s not the subjectivity of merely human belief. It’s not even a matter of collective human opinion. Even human regard for an incredible man, Jesus. Christian faith is a matter of eyewitness testimony. It’s a matter of empirical observation by means of the same five senses of perception that you and I use every single day to live our lives.

Premodern people, modern people, post-modern people, whatever category you put yourself in, whether two, three, eight thousand years ago, whatever, whatever time you want to add to it, or first century people or twenty-first century people, all of us are here united in the experience of humanness. All of us are subject to the same reality of living by the five perceptions of sense.

 We rely on the testimony witness in a courtroom. We’ll send people to jail, on based, based on eyewitness testimony. We’ll, we’ll, actually, in some states, pull the lever and people die, because of eyewitness testimony, capital punishment. We rely on the experiences of others. Testimony of history. Read history books. A person was there and they’ve written it down, and we record that in history book. We accept that as pretty compelling, eyewitness evidence, eyewitness testimony. They were there, they saw it, this is what they said. We even rely on the experiences of others when we go shopping. Amazon reviews, anybody not buy a product or buy a product based on an Amazon review? Of course!

It brings us back, really, to the purpose of Luke’s Gospel. Luke 1:1 to 4, “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”

What’s he saying? I talked to people who were there. I talked to them. I recorded what they said, and then I visited and interviewed somebody else, and then I interviewed somebody else, and I went around Palestine, and I went around to Antioch, and I went around ever, I was with Paul, asking him, downloading everything.

 He got a lot of information. So much information wouldn’t fit into Luke’s Gospel. John tells us, John 21:25, “There are also many other things Jesus did,” so many that a comprehensive written record is literally impossible. John said, “Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” “But these have been written,” John 20:31, “These have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”