There
was a little old lady who would come out every morning on the steps of her
front porch, raise her arms to the sky and shout, "Praise the Lord!".
One day an atheist moved into the house next door. Over time he became
irritated at the little old lady. Every morning he would step out onto his
front porch and yell after her, "There is no Lord".
Time
passed, and the two of them carried on that way every day. One morning in the
middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted,
"Praise the Lord! Lord, I have no food and I am starving. Please provide
for me, oh Lord!"
The
next morning she stepped out onto her porch and there were two huge bags of
groceries sitting there. "Praise the Lord!" she cried out. "He
has provided groceries for me!" The atheist jumped out of the hedges and
shouted, "There is no Lord. I bought those groceries!"
The
little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted, "Praise the Lord!
He has provided me with groceries, and He made the devil pay for them!"
There
is a television show called "Extreme Makeover Home Edition". It is a
show where a construction crew comes into a home and does a complete
renovation, usually for a low income family or a family that has seen other
hardships. There is nothing new about extreme makeovers. In fact, Jesus performed
many extreme makeovers in the Bible. We heard one such makeover in the reading
we heard from Luke 8:26-39 earlier in this morning's service.
When
Jesus healed the demon-possessed man, he was no longer shameless. He was
clothed. He had a sense of what was decent and
proper. In other words, he had morals.
The man was in his right mind. He saw the world as it was…a world with both
enemies and friends. It doesn’t matter what they are or how severe they are.
Jesus has the power to overcome our demons.
The
story of Jesus and the demon-possessed man is an example of spiritual warfare.
Jesus declared war on Satan and his demons. The Bible doesn't tell us much
about demons, but it tells us enough. They are real and they deal in fear and
deception. They are opposed to God and everything he does. We do not have to
fear demons because we have faith in God's power.
All
of us have our own inner demons, but they usually are not as severe as those
who controlled the man. Our demons include possessiveness, hoarding things,
extreme individualism, self-centeredness, racial prejudice, homophobia or
exclusiveness. They could be spiritual questions, family secrets, health issues
or anything else. They exist in the minds of perverts, rapists, murderers,
child molesters, other criminals and anyone who thinks, does or speaks evil. To
be possessed is culturally acceptable, and to be demon-free goes against our
culture. That is scary because it goes against the status quo.
When
demons control us, we are not ourselves because we are not in control. In
contrast, sin is what we do because
we are in control of our lives. The freedom demons offer is a false freedom
because it dehumanizes and isolates its victims. Just look at how the
demon-possessed man was treated. He was isolated from the community by having
to live in the cemetery. He was isolated when the townspeople tried to confine
him in chains.
Who
are the people in our society that we try to restrain in various forms of
chains? Are they people like the mentally ill or clients of sheltered workshops
such as Penny Lane Enterprises? What places does Jesus take us to that scare
us? Are we scared of people who are different from us because of race, colour,
creed or other petty reasons? Jesus forces us to confront our demons. How do we
react when that happens? Do we react like the demon-possessed man did when he
was healed or do we react like the townspeople did?
This
story reveals the emphasis that Luke's Gospel places on salvation. It shows the
depth of human suffering into which God's salvation can reach. Jesus seeks out
the oppressed, understands their plight, redirects their rage and
reincorporates them into the community. Jesus' power is greater than all the
forces in the world. Jesus never went out looking for demons, but when he found
them he dealt with them immediately and severely. We do not have to go looking
for demons. We need to keep our eyes fixed on God.
The
demons knew what their fate was supposed to be. They knew that they were
supposed to enter the abyss, which was known as the place where God confines
demons. They pleaded with Jesus to go into the pigs instead. Since pigs were
unclean animals in the eyes of the Jews, it was logical that unclean spirits
sought out unclean things. Even though the demons thoughts that they had won
when Jesus agreed to their request, in reality they lost because the pigs
entered a natural abyss when they fell off of the cliff. (Pause)
So
how do we deal with evil. There are four steps:
1.
We must
expect struggles with evil. Satan has been defeated by Christ, but he will
never give up. He will keep fighting.
2.
We must
actively live out our faith. Satan's cronies tremble before God's awesome
power.
3.
We must
resist evil with the power of the Holy Spirit. We do this by going to the Lord
in prayer for everything.
4.
We must
remember that as believers in Jesus we are on the winning side. We will be
injured and we will suffer from time to time, but we will be free from
spiritual bondage.
Jesus
acted as a friend to the demon-possessed man. He asked the demons hard
questions and expected mature responses. The demons knew that Jesus would
radically change their lives, and they were not ambivalent when it came to radical change. When we
encounter Jesus we can expect radical changes in our lives. We won't be the
same. Either our hatred of Jesus will grow or we will draw closer to him in
faith. The demon-possessed man received
a new identity when Jesus answered his problems. The demon-possessed man sat at
the feet of Jesus, which meant that he was now under the authority of Jesus. He
chose to act responsibly. The man became free when he submitted to Jesus'
authority.
The
demon-possessed man was so grateful for his healing that he wanted to join
Jesus and the disciples. Instead, Jesus told him to stay home, minister and
witness to the people. In a sense, the man did
join the group. He became a disciple. We are also disciples when we follow
Jesus by faith by ministering and witnessing wherever we are. Sometimes we will
be called to a different calling than the one we would have chosen, but it is
important to listen carefully and obey the call to which we have been called.
It is better to be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to be a prince or
princess anywhere else-unless God has called us to be a prince or princess.
There
was a cost to the healing. The cost was the loss of the townspeople's
livelihood when the pigs died. The pigs were expensive property. They were sold
to the Roman occupiers for food. The people did not care that the
demon-possessed man was healed. They were only concerned with their livelihood.
In other words, they were more concerned with material things than they were
with spiritual things. They knew what to do when the man was sick, but now that
he was healed they didn't know what to do. They could have rejoiced with the
man, but to do that they would have to have been healthier themselves. They
were sick and could not deal with the healed person in their midst, so their
natural response was to reject this new element that had come into their lives,
just like a body sometimes rejects a transplanted organ.
Christianity
preaches a message of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
There is no violence in that message, so why do so many of the other religions
in the world persecute Christians? It is because they recognize that Jesus can
do things for the people that they can't. Jesus paid for our sin debt on the
cross. No other religion can offer that. In other words, people of other
religions are jealous of Christians-plain and simple!
Now
that the man was healed, the townspeople would have to find room for him in the
village. Will his family welcome him home? Has his wife remarried? Have his
children made peace with his absence? How will he make a living? Will he become
dangerous again? Will one of their daughters fall in love with him? Jesus
solved one problem but created the potential for more problems. It's no wonder
that the townspeople asked Jesus to leave.
When
we have been freed by Jesus, we are free to follow his version of the Ten
Commandments:
1.
Be yourself.
We can be aware that we are integral parts of God's creation.
2.
Love the
world by loving your neighbour. We are all neighbours and we have a neighbourly
connection to every other human being on earth, including those who suffer from
mental illness.
3.
Learn from
everyone. We are all equal in God's eyes. We may have different gifts and
talents, but we are specially gifted by God's spirit.
4.
Love always
and in every circumstance.
5.
Be merciful,
just like Jesus showed mercy to the demon-possessed man.
6.
Live surround
sound. There is never just one voice that we hear when we listen to God speak
to us. We can't hear his voice without hearing the voice of Scripture and being
open to receive the voice of the Spirit. There is never just one side to a
story. It takes all four gospels to tell the story of Jesus.
7.
Learn a
living. Everyone we meet has something to teach us. The demon-possessed man
taught us how we should respond to
God's grace in our lives. The townspeople taught us how not to respond to God's grace.
8.
Truth is
black and green. It is black in the words of Scripture, and it is green in the
relationship between creation or nature and the Creator.
9.
Trust the
Spirit: the power of force is farce. In Jesus the ultimate expressions of power
and powerlessness came together.
10.
Show Courage.
The courage Jesus showed was not just the courage of resistance. It was the
courage of endurance. There will be some of us who may be called upon to show
the courage of resistance, taking definitive, costly action, in order to stand up
for justice, mercy, truth, and love. But every single one of us will find it
necessary to offer the courage of endurance throughout our lives. The easiest
way for evil to win is not through bombs or bullets, but through the slow
erosion of commitment and courage to stand against the current.
1.
Swindoll,
Charles R. : Swindoll's New Testament
Insights on Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan; 2012)
2.
Alexander
Wales, "The Demons Within". Retrieved from www.esermons.com
3.
Lawson, B.,
& Ogilvie, L.J.: The Preacher's
Commentary Series, Vol. 26:Luke (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 1983)
4.
The NKJV
Study Bible (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.; 2007)
5.
Barry, J.D.;
Grigoni, M.R.; Heisler, M.S.; Custis, M.; Mangum, D.; & Whitehead, M.M.; Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA:
Logos Bible Software; 2012)
6.
David R.
Cartwright, "What Happens When You Are Not Prepared for What
Happens". Retrieved from www.esermons.com
7.
Arley K.
Fadness, "Liberating the Possessed". Retrieved from www.esermons.com
8.
Leonard
Sweet, "Jesus' Ten Commandments". Retrieved from ww.esermons.com
9.
Exegesis for
Luke 8:26-39. Retrieved from www.sermonwriter.com
10.
Rev. Dr. Ken
Klaus, "A Man's Declaration". Retrieved from www.lhm.org
11.
Lectionary
Homiletics, Vol. XXIV, #4 (St. Paul, MN: Luther Seminary; 2013)
12.
Proper 7-Year
C. Retrieved from www.preachingtip.com/archive
13.
"An Extreme
Makeover". Retrieved from http"//sermonsforkids.com
No comments:
Post a Comment