If You Know Where You Are, You'll Live Like You Know It
Pastor Jamie Self - 5/24/2026
What happens to your joy when ministry stops working? In Luke 10, Jesus sends 72 ordinary people out as lambs among wolves, with nothing in their hands and no backup plan. They come back jabbering with joy over everything they saw God do. Jesus meets them there, and then redirects them to a better source, one that will still be holding them when the grind sets in. Your name was written in heaven before you knocked on a single door, and this sermon is about whether that reality is actually the thing holding your joy.
Weekly Reflection
“Your name is in the book and it's written in his blood. The only ink that will never fade.”
Most of us have felt what it is like when ministry is moving. The conversations are happening, the relationships are good, people are responding. The joy comes easy in those seasons. But what holds you when it all slows down? When you are still faithful but the fruit is not there, and you are not even sure what happened. Luke 10 does not give you a technique for finding joy again. It points you back to something that was already settled. Your name was written in heaven before you knocked on a single door. That is either the bedrock you are standing on, or it is not yet.
Here is a resource that expands on today's theme. John Piper preaches directly from Luke 10:20 and asks the same question Jamie is asking: is being saved actually more thrilling to you than ministry success?
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This Week’s Challenge:
Pause and ask: What is my joy actually resting on right now? Is it the outcomes, the relationships, the sense that something is working? Name one thing you will do this week to put your weight down on the source that does not move
Scripture:
Luke 10:1-24