The Message & The Messenger
Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:21-28
Let's pray...
If you were here with us last week you will hopefully remember our main point from Mark 1:21-22. The main point was that the Author has the Authority. Everybody say it with me, The Author Has The Authority.
In other words God's Word as He actually spoke it and taught it in the flesh (Jesus) and as He has revealed in the 66 books of our Bible – His Word has an authority over our lives.
It did THEN. It does NOW. It Will ALWAYS have authority over our lives.
We can talk all day about any topic (politics, church government, finances, pop culture, the sciences, food, alcohol, family, etc) and we can spout off our our best guesses and our feelings and what we think should be true or fair or whatever – but at the end of the day, if our thoughts, actions, reactions, words, choices – if our LIVES don't match up to God's Word, we need to submit ourselves and fit into His mold instead of trying to twist the Scriptures or reinterpret them or ignore them to suit our wants or to validate parts of our lives that are being lived OUTSIDE of His will.
Like I said last week, we are not in a position to change God's mind any more than a character in a book is in a position to change the next chapter that its creator has written.
Now that was the main point and it carries through the rest of this passage, to verse 28. So keep it in mind as we continue, we'll point back to that point that “The Author Has The Authority” throughout the night.
Now let's move on. I said last week that there were a couple of other important points from this passage. From our, “What does this clearly say what is happening?” questions let's cover the other points again.
Point one: Jesus is recognized as who He truly is by a demon (vv. 23-24) and the demon is controlled by Jesus without a real fight (vv. 25-26).
Point two (Rounding back from last week and vv. 21-22): The crowd is amazed by Jesus' teaching AND His power to cast out demons (v. 27).
Point three: Jesus gets quick fame (v. 28).
Now with the question of “What?” answered, what do we ask next?
“So What?” Let's walk through what we can in the time we've got and then be done for the night...
Point one: Jesus is recognized as who He truly is by a demon (vv. 23-24) and the demon is controlled by Jesus without a real fight (vv. 25-26). Really it's two points, let's dive in.
Before we really dig into this, let me just say, I spent hours and hours this week reading about demons in the bible and evil spirits and their origin from the fallen third of the angels who along with Satan rebelled against God.
And with all of the times that the Bible talks about demons, I can say, yes, I really believe in demons.
Sometimes Bible teachers try to deny the supernatural elements of the bible or at least downplay them because they say that things like angels and demons are hard to believe. And so they try to explain away these evil spirits and simply call it schizophrenia or some other kind of illness.
The problem with that is the fact that sickness is talked about as sickness in a clearly different way than encounters with demons.
So, I don't want to shrug this off as something other than what it clearly is.
At the same time. I know that we have people who come to this church from a wide range of theological backgrounds and there are some people who want to take the reality of demons and push it to an extreme to where everything and anything that goes wrong in your life is caused by an evil spirit.
Listen, sometimes – I would be so bold as to say most of the times in our lives, it is us who are fronting against God. Most of the time, Satan doesn't even need to bother with us because we are already doing enough on our own to hinder the gospel in the lives of people around us that we aren't a threat to him.
But, with all that said, let's approach this from what the passage clearly says. This dude stands up in the gathering and freaks out when He hears Jesus – the God of the Universe – teaching the truth.
Now, the demon who had control of this man recognized Jesus from the start. And because the demon understood the Lordship (the Authority) of Jesus, there was no thought of really fighting back or resisting JESUS! It's Jesus! It's the God of the Universe! What was that demon, what are we going to bring to the fight?!
He addresses Jesus, but then he is gone just as quick.
This is something that I think about often. I think that OUR main problem as humans – Christians and non-Christians – is that we do not have a proper view of the Holiness of God.
It is something that I've mentioned more than once. When you look at the reaction of men who encountered even a small taste of the AWESOMENESS of God – the Holiness that is God, there is a common reaction.
It's not, “Hey! What's the deal with my suffering?!” Or, “Why don't you do something about that king, president, spouse, or serial killer?!”
And it's not some flippant reaction where the person gives Him a nudge and a wink about their own sin.
No! Some of the holiest men in history and some of the most brutal and strong all shut their mouths in awe or cried out in repentance and for mercy.
The demons react in surprise and terror. Over and over it is “Oh! No! What are you doing here?! Are you here to Destroy us?!” Sometimes they begged for a reprieve, but standing up to the God of the Universe is never a serious option in their minds.
I believe that if we could begin to understand the full on greatness and holiness of God. If we, in the Church, will just begin to see Him as He has revealed Himself instead of imagining Him as some kind of push-over god, then our lives as Christians would be undeniably different than that of the world.
I'm not saying that we should learn from the demons, but I will say that there is truth to be found in the Scriptures like Proverbs 1:7, which tell us “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”
That word fear in Hebrew is yir'ah. It means to have a respect or reverence for someone that comes from an understanding of that person's (God's) Awesomeness.
Listen, I'm calling you to remember what it was that you and I were saved FROM. Ultimately, we didn't need to be saved from sin, and we definitely don't need saved from the Devil as much as we needed to be saved from God Himself.
It was God's wrath that was due to us because of OUR sin that we needed rescued from. That wrath - That's what Jesus absorbed on the cross for us.
When Jesus took all of our sin to the cross, God poured out all of the punishment and wrath that was due to you and to me for our sin and because justice was served through and to Christ, mercy could then be poured out on you and me.
When we see the Holy God of the Universe and see His infinite love for us. When we see the Bad news that makes the Gospel the Good news that it is, it changes everything.
Truly, every time we open our mouths, or dwell in a particular area of thoughts or feelings, what we are doing is revealing what we are truly believing about God.
Back to the point from this passage. The demon hates and is terrified by God, so the demon torments a person who was made in God's image and the demon freaks out when he sees that Jesus – with all of the power of the universe on His side – is there to cast him out.
Now there's a sub point, we need to ask, “Why did Jesus tell the demon to be quiet before He cast the the demon out of the man?”
The demon, was telling the TRUTH when he called Jesus the Holy One of God. So why shut that down? Why not let EVERYONE hear it?
First off, we will see in other parts of Jesus' life when He says, Do not to talk about the full character and nature of who He is. A lot of times it was simply that Jesus didn't want to reveal everything until the appointed time.
But I believe there's a bigger issue at hand. You see the problem was not so much the message as it was the messenger. Anything coming from the mouth of a demon is tainted.
I used to be a class warrior. I had a tangible hatred for people of higher economic and social levels than my own. Honestly there are still times when I see someone rolling by in a Hummer or a Lexus and I have to repent of this all over again.
Anyway, while I am getting much better with this class war nonsense; there was a time when I would not have listened to a word that a person said – no matter how true it may have been – because of what they drove, how much money they made, where they lived or whatever.
Some of us still fight this when we talk to people of different political persuasions, people from different places in the country or from other countries, and sadly, I fear that even in a crowd this size there are some who will discount a message because of the gender, age or race of the messenger.
The bottom line is a message can always be compromised by the messenger. Sometimes that is because of OUR sinfulness when we receive the message with unfair, or untrue thoughts about the messenger.
But what I want you to look at – what I want us to look at – is how we as Christians in Jefferson County and Trimble County, compromise the message of reconciliation and the message of God's love when WE as the messengers taint the truth by our own lives – when we taint the truth by living lives contrary to the Gospel – Lives that deny a hope in God by our worries about the things of this world,
lives that don't reflect the grace and mercy He showed us because we hold so tight to unforgiveness and hate,
lives that deny the humility of the Christian life lived out because we operate so fully and foolishly in our old worldly pride.
In all those areas, when you and I go back to our old operating system, then we are not so different than that demon. We may be people with a great message that we SAY, that is lost because WE are saying it out of evil lives.
Now let's get some Gospel in here. Jesus tells the demon to do what? He tells him to be quiet. Jesus says SHUT UP!
But He doesn't tell you and me to SHUT UP!
NO! Instead He says keep speaking the truth! Shout it from the rooftops.
It's true that we may not HAVE BEEN so different than one of those demons, EXCEPT for the GOSPEL!
Except for Jesus dying for the sins we committed before we were saved AND except for the Holy Spirit who now empowers you and me to overcome those old sins that hinder our ability to Witness to the lost world.
Jesus doesn't tell us to SHUT UP! We aren't like that demon, eternally lost. We ARE FORGIVEN and We Have the Good News.
So get up tonight, go out and Say it! Say it Loud and by the power of the Holy Spirit, start LIVING IT so that in you the message and the messenger will work in partnership to bring your lost friends and family and coworkers and enemies out of death and into life.
Now two more points, we're going to hit these pretty quick they are really just review.
Point two (Rounding back from last week and vv. 21-22): The crowd is amazed by Jesus' teaching AND His power to cast out demons (v. 27).
Anytime you see a miracle from Jesus it goes hand in hand with His teaching. Truly, the miracles are pointers saying, in case you have doubts, this is a guy you should pay attention to, trust and follow.
If we lose sight of that, we will see Jesus as a wonder worker, or a compassionate healer or whatever and listen, He is a wonder worker, and He is compassionate. But OH! He is so much more. He is the God of the universe totally other – totally Holy, with all of the power to create and sustain the cosmos – and despite His infiniteness and our little finiteness, He chose to and still chooses to stoop down into our lives.
He still does miracles today. One of the men who cleans the newspaper office with his wife has been out because of some serous problems with his lungs. Part of the problem was a large mass, that was most likely a tumor in His lung.
We had been praying for him at work and a few weeks ago when the doctors where set to operate and remove the mass, they did a final scan and found out that the mass was gone. Completely gone. But listen. If you look at that miracle and miss God. Then you miss everything. Everything.
Alright, final Point: Jesus gets quick fame (v. 28).
Andy talked a few weeks back about the tragic cycle of fame - Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and back through pop culture history – what we see in the headlines now is what we see in Scripture too. As we continue through the Gospel of Mark and as we follow Jesus to the cross, we will see ourselves in the fickle crowds of His time.
They will flock to Jesus for the show and for the treats. They flock to Jesus the healer, and the one who feeds the 5,000 people. They love the power of His teaching and some no doubt love to hear Him give the religious leaders a hard time.
But eventually they begin to fall away as they start really listening to that teaching and they start to catch on to the fact that following Jesus has very real and sometimes painful consequences.
Now, I've talked at length about how some of us maybe and some believers around the world for sure, will be martyred. They will be killed by others because of their faith. They will die because of the Gospel. But tonight I want to take this in another very real direction.
The truth is that most of the people of Jesus' time who followed for a while, then turned away and most of the people today, maybe some of you here, who will turn away, most did not and most now will not turn away and deny Christ in their life and their words because of external conflicts. Instead it will be an internal fight.
In The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes that "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die."
If you walk in the path of Jesus- if you are His, then you can live with faith that because of His resurrection, that you will also be resurrected. But you will also follow the path that He traveled on this side of the cross as well.
To one degree or another, The Spirit of God will do a work on you and will call you to die to your old way of thinking, speaking, acting and LIVING when those things contradict the truth of God.
In a very real way, Sanctification is the process of conforming the messenger (the Christian - you) to the message (The truth of God's Holiness).
So, Christian, will you follow God? Will you trust God? Will you listen and submit to His Word? Will you show your love and gratitude for Him by leaving those old fights and follow Him?
Or will you join the crowd that says, “No, this is too high a cost.”
Listen, when the culture turns away from the bubble-gum pop stars, it crushes the pop star, no the crowd. The opposite is true when we turn away and stop following God.
It was true for Adam and Eve. It was true for the Israelites in the wilderness. It was true for King Saul. It was true for Judas. It has been true for us.
Look inside. Look at your life when you have turned away. We do it even as the Church.
And as you look inside and when you find those areas (maybe you are in the middle of this battle right now) don't sit down and give up, No remember Ephesians 2 and elsewhere that says yes. We WERE sinners, we WERE enemies of God, We WERE strangers, BUT GOD – by His grace and mercy and not by our works – He reconciled us to Himself through Christ.
And “...he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6)
So don't give up. Don't go on defeated in sin. Take action in the Spirit and Kill that Pride. Kill that Fear. Kill that Idolatry. Kill that Laziness. Kill that complaining. Kill that Gossip. Because those things hinder the message by discrediting you as the messenger.
As my old pastor was often heard saying, “You know the right thing to do. So (by the power of God that is in you) Do IT!
I love you. Let's pray...
