In Luke 10, Jesus sends out the 72 apprentices to look for “people of peace”. For us all in our relationships – who are the “people of peace” the people the Spirit is leading us to, who the Spirit is putting peace between us and them.

Our call is to follow that peace to the best of our ability.

These are the people who will be most open to us as we share the love of Jesus with them through actions and also our words.

Maybe like me some of you were brought up thinking we needed to share our faith with everyone in our life and maybe even everyone we meet on the road.

But according to Jesus instructions – we are off the hook for sharing our faith with everyone all the time. But we are very much on the hook to look for and ask the Spirit to lead us to People of Peace!

How do you know if someone is a person of peace?

We see from this passage it’s someone who is drawn to relationship or conversation with you, welcomes you into their life, is even willing to serve you (food in this passage, but could be in other ways), and when they do know you are a Jesus follower, they seem open to hearing about that part of your life, or even curious about that!

If you get to know a person of peace well enough, you may get to tell them more about the Kingdom.

The Spirit will lead us and give us opportunities to share about the difference Jesus has made in our lives – if we are open to respond.

I want to give you a new tool that we teach in our Discipleship and Mission training here at Mill City – which by the way we will start again Wednesdays this fall for anyone who is interested.

This tool is called three circles.

It’s a simple way to tell the 4 part story of God we see in scripture:

Creation, disruption, redemption and restoration.

This is a way you could share the good news of Jesus with someone. You may not be able to sit down and draw this tool for them. But maybe! You never know!

And perhaps what this tool can do for us, is give us the ability to have the story of God and the difference Jesus makes seared in our memory.

That way when we do get to share a part of the Story of the Kingdom and what Jesus has done, we don’t freeze up!

Here is a copy of this image:

You can watch someone draw it out here: VIDEO

And here is an example of what can be said when you are drawing the tool:

If you turn on the television, or look on your social media feed – it’s very clear that we live in a broken world. There is a lot of death disease, violence and suffering.

But we also see traces of beauty – like in nature, or the joy we see in kids or the beauty found in close friendships. That’s because God’s design for the world was perfect.

When God created the world, there was no death or disease!

But starting with the very first people we as humans chose to go our own way and leave God’s perfect design. This led to sin and brokenness in our world and in us.

But we don’t like to be in brokenness, so we try to get out! For some, they try to get out on their own by climbing the ladder of success.

Or doing good things and being religious, going to church and helping people. While those are good things – they don’t get us out of the brokenness of the world.

Some try to drown out the brokenness with addictions, or pleasure, or even getting totally absorbed into relationships.

These attempts of getting out of brokenness ourselves end up snapping back like a bungee cord.

But God loves us so much, he didn’t want us to stay in brokenness. So he did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

He provided the only way out – and that is through his son Jesus.

Jesus came down into our world – God in the flesh. He allowed himself to be killed on a cross – taking on the brokenness of the world – and then 3 days later he rose from the dead.

And he declared that if anyone turned from their own way, and surrendered to him and believed that Jesus came and died on the cross and rose from the dead – and led him be their leader and king (or Lord).

They would be forgiven and made new and would then be able to live like Jesus and experience how different life is when we see that the Kingdom of God is near.

Those who trust in Jesus know God, live like Jesus and are led by the Spirit.

They get to be a part of what God is doing in the world to redeem it from the brokenness. Making wrong things right, providing for those in need, offering and receiving forgiveness, and living lives extending love and peace to those around us.

And some day, Jesus will return and bring complete healing and restoration. There will be no more death, disease, violence or suffering. Jesus will make all things new.

Jesus invites us to choose this beauty over this suffering and brokenness – and let him be our savior and leader as he redeems what is broken in our lives and in the world, and some day he will restore it all for good.

This is the difference Jesus makes in our lives now, and for eternity if we choose to follow him.

This is the 4 part story of God we see in scripture:

Creation, disruption, redemption and restoration.