I think that's appropriate. Christelle, what a, what a courageous woman she is. And so to think about just having the nerve to go on video and tell a story like that in front of our entire church. That's really incredible.
So, so grateful for Christelle. Gosh, I'm going to tell you guys something. When you are spending some time, like a couple of weeks, preparing for a sermon related to spiritual warfare and demons and all that kind of stuff, some things can kind of get in your head, you know. Now, the way that I am, I don't know if this has ever happened to you.
Maybe you're not of that age yet. But there's this whole thing that happens at night when you're sleeping with like an internal thermostat. And so for me, I go through the whole night taking the covers and throwing them off of me when I get hot and then putting them back on when I get cold.
And it's this, I don't even realize I'm doing it. It just happens all night long, off and on, off and on. And so when you're laying there at night and you have been studying and studying and studying about demons and spiritual warfare, you start to have things going on in your dreams too. And so one night in the last couple of weeks as I was preparing for this, it was one of those moments where the covers were thrown off. And so my little bare feet were exposed. Now we have this dog. We have this dog that our dog sleeps in the crate in the corner of our room. And on this particular night, the dog had apparently gotten out of the crate and had made its way up onto the bed. And so just about the time that the covers came off of me, our dog decided to do one of these stretches with its paws toward my bare feet. And you know, dogs, they have like claws that come out. And so there in the middle of the night, what got a hold of me was like demon claws in the middle of the night. And so we were awakened from from from sleep by demon claws.
And you jump up out of the bed and then you jump up out of the bed and you see this looking at you. I mean, that that's a demon dog if I've ever seen one. Demon dog, demon dog. You know, our our culture has been obsessed with trying to figure out what demons are and how to interact with those things ever since the beginning of time as we began to understand more and more about them. Just to just to kind of get into it right from the start to help you understand what a demon is.
It's pretty it's pretty simple. Demon is a fallen angel that with Lucifer rebelled against God, was kicked out of heaven as a result of that. And a demon's entire purpose is to oppose God. Whatever God wants in the world, whatever God wants in your life, a demon wants the opposite. That's what a demon is. And as we begin to understand that, and there's just kind of been this growing interest over time about what demons are and how they work and all those kinds of things.
So right now, if you were to go look at thrift books, which is like a used bookstore that's online, here's what you find. 540 books that you can buy on demons. Their counterparts, angels. You know how many books you can buy on angels?
55. And that's something kind of showing the interest that our culture has in this kind of stuff. You know, over the last two years, Hollywood made $1.4 billion on supernatural horror movies. That's $300 million more than they made the two years prior to that. It's an increasing interest in what's going on with demons.
In addition, I mean, you look at just comedies, and it's $300 million more than what they made in comedies as well. Clearly, we have an interest in this space. That's one side of the coin, like great, great interest. The other side of the coin is we just don't believe in any of that stuff. We just kind of say, all of that sounds really hokey.
All of that sounds almost uneducated, juvenile even. It may be summed up with that really famous quote that ends the movie The Usual Suspects. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing us that he doesn't exist.
You know, C.S. Lewis in his book The Screwtape Letters, in the preface to that book, he sets up two different camps, this way of thinking about demons. On the one side, he says that there are people that just don't believe in it. Those would be people that when they see things happening in their life, that's like stuff that they don't want to be happening in their lives, or they see undesirable things happening in the culture, then they would say you can completely explain that by natural means.
What C.S. Lewis says in the other camp is people that have this great interest in this stuff. These would be the people that find a demon under every rock. These would be the people that whenever they get sick, they would say a demon is causing this. Whenever they couldn't find a parking place, they would say a demon is causing me not to be able to park the way I want to. Whenever their sporting team loses, they'd say demons in that game. These are people that blame everything that's wrong on spiritual warfare. What you need to know at Mercy Hill is that this, we don't believe in either way of thinking about those things. Because we acknowledge that demons are at work in the world.
They do exist. But we don't think it's demons necessarily messing up your life. It can be, but it's not demons that are making you make the decisions.
It's not, I mean, we've got enough problems going on in our lives because of our own sin issues. It doesn't necessarily take demons to make that happen. So some of you, as I'm beginning to talk about this stuff, you may be thinking this.
Hey Jonathan, I've been saved for a long time. So why in the world does this have anything to do with me? I'm not fighting any demons.
They can't get a hold of me anyway. Some of you may be coming in here and you're like, I'm just checking all this stuff out, dude. I don't know anything about this stuff that you're talking about.
Somebody invited me here. I think you're making a whole lot of assumptions and even talking to me about this. Certainly it doesn't have anything to do with me. What if it does? What if it does? What if it does? Because what if the reason that you're having a hard time connecting with God and understanding who Jesus is, is because of demonic influence in your life?
What if it does? Because the sin issues that you can't seem to master in your own life have to do with some sort of spiritual warfare that's going on that's like a battle for your life. Here's the big idea that I want you to walk away with today. Jesus has power and authority over the demonic realm. Just like Jesus has authority over your life and everything else in the world, Jesus has authority over the demonic realm.
So here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a peek at Luke chapter four. And just as we walk into the second week of this series called Walking with Jesus, where last week we looked at with Pastor Andrew's preaching, we looked at Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by the devil. We're doing a whole lot of devil kind of stuff right now, but it's really not about the devil. It's really about seeing Jesus in light of this stuff.
And so what we're going to spend time doing today is looking at the authority and power of Jesus as he encounters a demon here in Luke chapter four. So go ahead and open your Bibles or flip on your phones or whatever it is you're going to do. And while you're getting there, I'm going to pray.
All right, let's do it. Father, thank you so much for the authority that you have over the whole earth. Thank you for the power that is put on display.
Thank you for the way that you care about us. And God, thank you for the way that that love is demonstrated in the life of Jesus. Help us this morning to understand the immense authority and power that he has, what that means for us, and what it means in having power over the demonic realm. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. All right, so if you got your Bibles there, we're going to start off in chapter four, verse 31.
Let me set up a little bit of context for you. So here's what's happened after Jesus has come out of the wilderness, and he goes into his hometown of Nazareth. He goes into Nazareth. Things don't go so great there.
He ends up getting rejected in his hometown, and so he's going to another place. Now, most of the time, whenever we see Jesus rolling up into a new town, in our minds, what we're thinking automatically is he's got his entourage of disciples that are kind of gathered around him. That's not happening here. It's not happening because he has not yet had any of those disciples that have decided to follow him. Jesus is rolling up into this town solo.
All right, so check it out. Verse 31, it's where we pick up. And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. Now, why does it say that it went down? It says that it went down because Nazareth was sitting at about 1,200 feet above sea level. Capernaum is a town that is right on the Sea of Galilee, so he's literally going downhill to get to this town of Capernaum. Why is Capernaum important? It's important because it's where Jesus is going to set up sort of his ministry hub. All of the ministry that he's going to be doing around the region of Galilee is going to be coming out of Capernaum. Also out of Capernaum, that's where he's going to meet his first disciples.
That's where Philip and Andrew, I'm sorry, that's where Peter and Andrew are. That's where John and James are. That's where their fishing business is, all set up right there, and he's going to call them to himself, and this is where he's going to pick up those disciples.
But before he ever picks up those disciples, he's going to encounter this demon, and so let's go ahead and get into that. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching for his word-possessed authority. Now, if you're taking notes and marking up Bibles and all that kind of stuff, then one of the things you probably want to circle is the word astonished, and you probably want to circle the word authority. The reason for that is because when it says that they're astonished, I mean, that's like a big surprise. That's like they're mesmerized.
They can't understand it. It's blowing them away, his authority. Where is it that we get authority from? Where is it that when we say someone has authority in our culture, where does that come from? There are several places where people can get authority.
One place where people can get authority is from tradition. It may be like when someone is a successor to someone else. So you have a person that's in authority, and then they go away, and whoever it is that succeeds them, they take on that person's authority. That would be like a king, a monarch, right? Another way that someone can get authority would be through position. So there's a hierarchy that's set up in a culture, and a person occupies a position within that structure of hierarchy, and that's how they get their authority.
What does that look like? Like a police officer. What's the reason that you pull over on the side of the road when some blue lights come on behind you?
It's because that police officer is part of a hierarchy that gives them authority to be able to make you pull over to the side of the road. What about a collective? A collective is when you have several people, and these several people get together, and they decide that this person has authority. This is how we get jorts. That someone suddenly decided that jorts were a thing again. People get together and they say, that's cool.
There can be people like me that say, no it's not, but I have been outvoted. And so now people are wearing jorts and wearing fanny packs again. I don't get it. I'm just praying that jinkos never see the light of day.
Those of you that are thinking, what are jinkos? Don't even bother looking it up. Total trash.
Total trash. Another way that people can get authority is through expertise. Right? So you have someone that has gone to school for something, someone that has done research, and I mean more than just like googling something. We tend to call googling something, I did my research.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people that like actually go and do in-depth research and they simply know more than everybody else does about a particular subject and that gives them authority. That may be something like a mechanic. A mechanic may know more about your car than you do and so that gives them authority when it comes to working on your car. It could be someone like a physician and they know more about your body than what you do and so you give them authority to help make decisions about what you're going to do. with your body. It could be a scholar.
Lots of things that we go to get education for. Here's why this is so important. They are amazed, astonished at Jesus' authority because none of that applies to him.
It's coming from somewhere else. It says that his word has authority. When the rabbis would come on the scene, the rabbis would appeal to rabbis who had gone before them. This rabbi says this. Jesus didn't do that. He would say things like, I am the fulfillment of this.
Right? There's one commentator that says that when Jesus would teach, it was like he was speaking with an exclamation point at all times. He says that when Jesus would teach the Old Testament, it was like he was reading his autobiography. That's a different kind of authority. That's the kind of authority that would astonish someone when they're used to someone appealing to someone else.
That's why this is such a big deal. Check out verse 33. In the synagogue, there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ha. I mean, maybe you're thinking a demon should say more than that. Ha.
That's what he said. What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.
I'm going to come back to the ha. But for now, I want us to look at this. It's showing up in a synagogue. So Jesus rolls up into a synagogue, and that's where he's encountering the very first demon of his entire ministry. That may be surprising to us, thinking, why in the world, in the place where God's people are gathered, would there be a demon? My question would be, why would we not think that would be the most logical place for that to be?
I mean, what kind of damage could the enemy cause when he puts a demonic influence into a church? And maybe you're sitting there saying, man, that would never happen in this place. And I would say to you, ah, let me just show you. So we get a ton of emails. You guys like to send us emails about things that are going on in your life, and that's a really great thing. They get sorted out. They come to our communications department, and a guy in there by the name of Nate the Great gets those and sorts them out to us.
It's his last name, the Great. This is one of the emails that came. He sent me a bunch of emails that had come in, and I just kind of parsed it down and chose to share just this one. I'm reaching out because I never experienced any of this until I became a Christian three or four months ago. I thought all this was just made up or just not true. But God has opened my eyes. I'm trying not to be scared anymore because these demons try to scare me at night. But as soon as I rebuke them in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, they flee. I shouldn't be scared. I know someday I won't be. I'm still young in the faith and getting used to all this, and I pray and thank the Lord every day for saving me and my family and for being able to have power over Satan's minions.
All right? So it happened in here. People are experiencing that stuff in our very church. So Jesus realizes that this man is possessed by a demon.
Why? Because it says that he's crying out with a loud voice. Now, when we look in Scripture, what we see is that a lot of times problems that people are having in their lives, particularly around like illness and things like that, that would be an indicator of some sort of demonic force in someone's life.
It's not always that way. I mean, sometimes Jesus would heal someone and he would say nothing about a demon that was at the root of it. But sometimes when he would heal people, he would say it was because of a demon, and at all times he would always cast that demon out.
And so whether it's somebody struggling with something like not being able to walk or somebody not being able to see, somebody that has epilepsy, somebody that has some sort of mental illness, there's all these examples in the Bible of when these things are connected to some sort of demonic oppression, but not always. But in this case, when the guy is crying out and causing this huge disturbance in the assembly of God's people, Jesus knows clearly that what he's dealing with is a demon-possessed man. And so when this demon-possessed man sees Jesus, what is it that he says? He says, hah. Now, when we see that word hah, most of us think that it means he's laughing, like the demon was laughing at Jesus, but the demon wasn't laughing at Jesus.
It was quite the opposite. Ha, when you go back to the Greek, what it has to do with is more like surprise, and not the good kind of surprise, the bad kind of surprise, the kind of surprise like when I'm taking my trash out at night and I can't see where I'm walking and I'm barefoot and I step on a slug. That's the kind of hah. Like the hah that comes out of my mouth at that time is not something that's pleasant. Maybe some of you have young children and in the middle of the night you're stumbling around the house because you want something to drink out of the fridge and so you're making your way to the kitchen and somebody's left a Lego on the floor and you step on that thing and the hah that comes out of your mouth has nothing to do with pleasantries. Maybe the hah is more like when the liver king throws out some jabs at Joe Rogan and all of a sudden Joe Rogan would actually show up and now the liver king is going, uh-oh, hah.
Some of you all don't even get that stuff. You haven't been watching, but I'm telling you, there's a beef going on between Joe Rogan and the liver king. And personally, I just think Rogan would win.
Rogan would win. All right, so he gets down to this place and he says, What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? That word us can be confusing to us because many of us have watched some of these movies and we've seen all of this stuff that's going on with like the spiritual realm and the way the movies and we relate that back to Mark chapter 5 when Jesus encounters what's called a legion of demons, the name that's given, meaning there's a whole bunch of them that are in this one guy. And so we think that whenever someone is possessed or has some sort of demon around them, it's got to be a bunch of them. And so the way that we read this is it must be talking about a whole bunch of demons that are in this one guy.
Here's what we fail to understand, that this is about authority. This is about Jesus' authority over those demons and what these demons know is that one day when Jesus, after he has come, when he sets up his reign, then they will be eradicated. They will be destroyed.
They will have no power, no consequence anymore whatsoever. And so what they're saying is on behalf, what he's saying on behalf of all the demons all throughout the world is, is now that time. Is this when you've come to shut us down? They are afraid. And then they call him this, I know who you are, the holy one of God. Now that word holy one is something that in the book of Psalms and throughout the Old Testament that is reserved only for one.
That is God. And isn't it ironic that here in these gospels, these people are trying to figure out what this authority means, what it says about who Jesus is. They are trying to figure out who he is and what's taking place around them, but these demons seem to know exactly who he is. The reason that they know exactly who he is is because they know that they must submit to his authority.
We keep getting that stuff confused. But the demons understand it. Here comes the moment, y'all. This is like the Hollywood moment. This is the moment when Jesus turns to the demon and he's getting ready to have the showdown. The big, dramatic moment.
It says in verse 35, Jesus rebuked him saying, be silent and come out of him. What? Jesus, come on.
You've got to have more than that. Where's your book that you're going to read all the incantations out of for at least 24 hours at the demon screaming it louder and louder and louder and louder? Where's the tone, Jesus? Where's the magic words?
Where's the religious relic that you have to hold up to the demon so that he catches on fire in his chest or something like that? There's none of that drama. Jesus ain't about that. He doesn't have to be about that. He just says, be silent and come out of him. This word rebuked, when we see that, maybe you're thinking about other rebukes in the Bible, like when John the Baptist rebukes Herod for taking his brother's wife as his own. He's rebuking a behavior.
Maybe you're thinking about when Paul rebukes Peter for his hypocrisy. You see, in those situations, a rebuke is about correcting a behavior. But here, this rebuke is more like a command. He's not just rebuking behavior. He's rebuking the very presence of the demon. I am here now, and that means you can't be. When Jesus is in the room, the demon must leave. That's the kind of authority we're talking about.
Nothing drama. And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. Hey, so, in 2005, my family and I, we moved to a new town to plant a church. The intent of planting this church was that we were going to go reach the people that were living in this kind of space that I'm talking about, like in that kind of darkness.
People that were just covered up by witchcraft stuff, people that were covered up by all kinds of wrong belief, and, I mean, just really messed up people. And so, as we moved into this town, we didn't know it at the time. We found out later that this coven of witches had found out that we were there and why we were there. And we found out that, on a regular basis, they were getting together in the middle of the night while we were sleeping, and they were casting spells on our family. And so, one night, seems like we got a lot of stories that take place at night while we're sleeping, but Felicia and I are lying there in the bed, and we both wake up at the same time.
This time, it's not a dog. This time, we're like, there's something wrong in the house. And we look up, and in our bedroom, always had Felicia's bridal portrait that's there on the wall. And right before our eyes, her bridal portrait morphed into the face of this demon. And we were like, this isn't good.
And so, we got up out of the bed, and we walked across the hall. And across the hall was our daughter's bedroom. She was, you know, two and a half, three years old at the time, and she had begun talking to us about monsters that she had been seeing.
She's too young, though. I mean, it's not like we were showing her movies that had any of this stuff or letting her read books about any of this. She had no framework for what a monster could be, you know? And so, we walked in, opened up the door, and as we walked through the threshold of her room, the temperature dropped in the room by about 15 degrees.
I mean, it was like frigid in there. And I looked into her room. She was starting to like heave, and there were these shadowy figures that were floating around the room. They were descending upon her and coming off. And this is what happened. Felicia and I looked at that, and this is what we said.
In the name of Jesus, leave this house. And you know what happened? It was like that.
It was gone. So, a lot of us can carry around fear when we start thinking about this stuff. Like, I want to keep my eyes closed to this stuff because I don't want this kind of thing happening in my life, so I'm just going to pretend that it's not there. But one of the things that I need you to hear is that when we encounter this as followers of Jesus, that His authority is so great that it extends to us, He grants it to us, and they must flee at the authority of His word.
And they can't fight. It's just like that, and it's gone. It's nothing to be afraid of.
They want you to be afraid, but there's nothing to be afraid of. Check this out. Verse 36 says, And they were all amazed and said to one another, What is this word? You probably want to underline that. For with authority and power, He commands the unclean spirits, and they come out.
What is it that causes it to come out? It's the authority and the power of His word. Hebrews 1 tells us that He upholds the universe, everything, even the stuff that you can't see, the stuff that you can't imagine. It says He holds it up by the word of His power.
Can you imagine that kind of power? The word of His power holds everything in place, and that means it holds you in place. That means that when things are coming against you, He is holding you up. At verse 37, it says, And reports about Him went out into every place in the surrounding region. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't help you see this, that our God is a missionary God, and that when Jesus does something with authority, the purpose of it is for it to go somewhere else. What Jesus does in Capernaum doesn't stay in Capernaum. The reputation of His authority and His power goes out around the region. And what we find in Luke chapter 10, just a few chapters later, is that He extends that authority to the disciple. He doesn't have those disciples yet. He's going to get them, and when He gets them, He is going to send them out with the same authority that He's talking about, the same authority that He extends to you and to me, so that we don't need to be afraid because we can take authority by the power of His word over all of these things that would mean us harm. Hey, remember the story that I just told you about my family? Here's how sneaky the enemy is. When you get caught up in some sort of demonic attack that's a frontal assault to your family like that, it makes you really sensitive to it, so that you're looking at a fight around every corner.
You're thinking that's the way He's coming at us. That church that we went to plant, it doesn't exist anymore. Do you know why it doesn't exist anymore? Because I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't wise enough. And the enemy made me think that the only way he was attacking was with a frontal assault. Meanwhile, he was saying things in my head, and I was making bad decisions.
And instead of saying no to this elder, instead of saying no to this thing that this person wanted our church to be about, mission drift, the whole thing slipped away. You see, oftentimes what the enemy is doing is not about the drama. We think that it is, but it's way more subversive than that. It's whispering the lies. It's deceiving you. It's manipulating you.
Hey, here's the application for this morning. Place your life under the authority of Jesus. It's that simple. I imagine that there are some of you that are sitting in here and that you've been following Jesus, but you've been blaming everything that's going wrong in your life on some sort of demonic influence. You can't take authority over demons if your own life isn't under the authority of Jesus.
What does that, what do I mean by that? Maybe you're demanding accountability in the life of someone who has hurt you, but you are unwilling to take that same accountability in your own life. Maybe you're pointing the finger at the sin in someone else's life saying what about that? Meanwhile, you are not willing to bring your sin to the forefront and you are not willing to confess it and it's staying a secret in your life. Maybe you think that you have some sort of mystic spiritual superiority, but at the same time that you think that, you're not even willing to do the bare minimum of serving on one of your church's serve teams or being involved in a community group or giving.
That's what it looks like. Hey, I bet there are some people who've been following Jesus, but you're experiencing nothing of this spiritual warfare that I've been talking about. If you aren't experiencing that kind of stuff, it could be a couple of things. One, if you aren't experiencing some sort of spiritual attack, it could be because you are blind to it. Maybe you refuse to believe it.
You refuse to believe it even exists. See, our disbelief can cause spiritual blindness. Or could it be that you have become so close to the demonic realm by the things that you're watching on TV or maybe even playing around with some tarot cards that it's like you've become desensitized to this stuff.
And you expect that when you encounter something that is demonic, that it is going to have that dramatic look that Hollywood portrays it to be. Meanwhile, the enemy is just wearing you down and you don't realize it's happening. Maybe if you aren't experiencing some sort of spiritual attack, it could be because the enemy doesn't even see you as a threat. Maybe you don't believe that he exists. If you don't believe he exists, then you're not a threat.
He's got nothing to fight. Maybe you got saved a long, long time ago. When you look back on your life, you're basically the same person.
There's been no growth, no change. And if you're not allowing the Holy Spirit to grow you and to refine you, then I guarantee you the enemy doesn't see you as a threat. Maybe you forgot that when the gospel came to you, it was on its way to someone else. And it stopped with you. You never passed it on. Maybe the Lord has been calling you to take a next step to go on this mission trip, to share the gospel with a neighbor. And you have said, no, no, no. And the whole thing stopped with you. When you aren't taking steps of obedience like that and you're holding it inside, you're not telling others you're no threat. Maybe you're someone who is just not yet a follower of Jesus.
Here's what I need you to know. That God wants to give you abundant life. Abundant life that's free of the chaos that surrounds you. An abundant life that's free from the lies that you believe about yourself and about God.
He wants that so badly for you that He sent His only son Jesus to come. And that life that you're trying to live and get it all sorted out, that you can't seem to make work, He sent Jesus to do that, to live that life perfectly. And then, when He didn't have to, to go on a cross and be crucified and to die the death that you deserved.
And then to go in the ground and be buried and on the third day to be raised up. And when He raised up, He gave you the life that you could never have. That life that I'm talking about that's free of those lies. Where you believe what God says to be true about you.
It's what we call the great exchange. Jesus in my place. And all you have to do is to admit that you are a sinner. To believe that Jesus has done everything necessary for your salvation. It's Him plus nothing. And then to commit your life to Him as the Lord of your life, placing your life under His authority.
That's it. So that's the thing that I'm calling you today. When you place your life under the authority of Jesus. And we're getting ready to celebrate some baptisms. And I can think of no greater picture of victory over evil in someone's life than when they go down into the water identifying with the death of Jesus and come out of that water identifying with the brand new life that He has given them. And I just pray that as we watch this, as we witness this together, that we're reminded of the great authority that Jesus has over us, over the demonic realm, and over the entire universe.
Would God be glorified at this place? Will you pray with me? Father, thank you for how good you are and how powerful you are. Thank you that we can marvel at your greatness. As people go into the water and come out signifying that they have turned their lives over to you and trusted in your gospel and nothing else to save them. That they have placed their life under your authority. Father, be glorified in this place this morning. In the strong name of Jesus I pray, amen.
