Luke 6:12-27
I know many of you don’t follow soccer over in England, but I’ve been a big Manchester United supporter for a long time. They arguably had the best coach in the history of the game for about 25 years. He retired back in 2013 and the team has been almost painful to watch ever since. As a coach, he had an innate ability to pull greatness out of even the most mediocre players and win championships with them. When you want to communicate a philosophy to new team members, you need to keep it clear and basic. When new players arrived at Manchester United, they learned the basic tenants of the club and took on a new identity. Get the basic principles down and the rest will come as you live out the team’s identity.
Jesus gives four promises and four warnings with the clear orders for how his vision of God’s work would progress forward. He has assembled his team of 12 (representing Israel) and began to equip them to be the new center for what God was going to do. Jesus gives them a vision of what the Kingdom will be like and it looks different from the world around them. This whole thing is going to be turned upside down.
If you were to condense God’s vision for the church down into a few simple bullet points to hold on to and live by, what would they be? What tasks should God’s people be involved in?