You are listening to the sermon podcast from Rocky Creek Church. Find more resources online at Rocky Creek dot church. I'm talking to you to turn with me when my favorite passage of scripture. We're going to be in Luke chapter four looking at verses 31 through 44 today and I'll talk to you specifically about a topic that Jesus is going to help us understand.
And that is that the gospel is more than a social gospel, that our work is more than a social gospel. And some of you will understand what that is, but in our 12th sermon going through the gospel of Luke, Jesus is going to explain something very important for us. And let me just ask you a question when you woke up this morning and when I went outside my house and realized it was 25 degrees, the thought came to me about the homeless community in Greenville County. And when it's 25 degrees outside, the question becomes, does the homeless community in Greenville County, what do they need more?
Do they need a blanket or a Bible? Now I know you church folks are like, they need both. Okay, cute. I get it, all right.
But this argument has probably been going on now for close to 150 years in the church, which is the greatest need. Does the homeless community, do they need a blanket or do they need a Bible? So let me explain something. In the late 1800s, what started happening with great industrialization in some of our major cities, it really started to focus a lot of areas, started to happen and people began to become more poor as some becoming more rich.
And there was not as strong of family establishments to take care of people. And so what eventually began to happen was you had more people in poverty living out on the streets of some of the urban areas. And so some of the churches began to say, we need to meet practical needs. And I think most of us in our right mind would say, that's a good thing, right?
Yes, amen. There's practical needs in our community. If there's someone hungry, if there's someone cold, let's meet that need. And what happened in the subsequent decades is this, is that they started handing out a lot of blankets and stopped opening up their Bibles.
Okay. So it was a good deed, but they were not getting to the good news. Does that make sense? So what happened was that later on in the 1900s, something started taking place where the church started saying, we're giving these away too much and we're neglecting this.
We need to stop being a compassion arm of the church and we're here just to get the gospel, the good news. And somebody goes, I don't know, should I say amen? What is that? Good thing, right?
It was a, their heart was in the right place probably, but what took place in that time, if you think about the middle 1900s, is that the church had stopped giving away blankets, got a lot more to the Bible. And then some people that were cold churches stopped acting like churches. Does that make sense to you? In name, they were a church, but they stopped teaching God's truth and they started just handing out blankets and assistance to people, which is a wonderful thing.
But in the mid 1900s, the need became so great as poverty continued to increase that all of a sudden the government got involved, which always makes things better, right? Okay. And then nonprofits started to step up and churches started to step away from giving hand out and just saying, this is our job to give Bibles not to give blankets. And now as a result, if you look at the current climate that we live in today, you would see that the stereotype right, wrong or indifferent is this.
Those who hand out Bibles don't care about blankets and those who can't out blankets don't care about the Bibles. And right now, honestly, if you are a vangelical Christian who says, we need to preach good news and also hand out blankets when it's possible, you can be labeled a whole lot of labels for what your honest heart is. And what's so dangerous about this type of thinking, if you have never considered it, that the social gospel is what it was called throughout the years. It was not just the good news.
It was a social good news. You have a need, let's meet that physical need and it emphasized social reform but neglected personal redemption and it cared deeply about personal suffering. But I'm going to go ahead and tell you that biblical compassion would see it as incomplete. It can passion replaces conversion.
Jesus' ministry announced in the last passage, I just realized this, this is the 12th sermon in Luke and Jesus hasn't officially done anything yet, okay? Last week he talked about his ministry's about to start but now it begins and we're going to see him do two types of miraculous things in this passage. But we're also going to see that while he does this in a serious way as he's handing out blankets and handing out medical assistance and handing out deliverance for needs, he's also going to say we cannot substitute the main thing in the midst of it. Jesus beats darkness, heals sickness, but his aim is to save lostness.
In this passage, go ahead and give you the thesis of what we're going to look at today. In this passage we're going to see that Jesus beats darkness, heals sickness, but his aim was never to stop there. His aim was to save lostness. Good deeds were never meant to replace the gospel.
Good deeds were meant to reinforce the gospel. That's the hope. That's why we come together and that's why we get to open up our scriptures today and see Jesus do exactly this. Let's look at how we encountered what I would call darkness.
This is the demonic. This is the spiritual realm of demons and all those wonderful spiritual warfare that some of you love to read and study about and some of you like to avoid and just go to bed at night. Let's look at what happens in verse number 31. Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee and was teaching them on the Sabbath.
They were astonished at his teaching because his message had authority. In the synagogue there was a man with an unclean demonic spirit who cried out with a loud voice, leave us alone. What do you have to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?
I know who you are, the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him and said, be silent and come out of him and throw him down before them. The demon came out of him without hurting him at all. Amazement came over them all and they were saying to one another, what is this message for?
He commands the unclean spirits with authority and power and they come out and news about him began to go out to every place in the vicinity. All right, let's pause there and note a few things. If you've been with us, you realize that last week he went back to his hometown. But before that he had been this place called Capernaum, which had been very receptive to his message.
Now, when his hometown people are ready to push him off the cliff, he goes back to the place where people were receptive. He goes back to Capernaum and starts to minister there. But his ministry started with teaching. It was God's word, set the agenda, not just simple needs.
And then what takes place is as he's teaching, once again there in the Sabbath, it's a synagogue. But if you were to think with us that we're on a Sunday in a church building, whatnot, that here are people who gather all the time in this community. It's not a huge area. So in the same way, some of you recognize people that are sitting around you.
Some of you sit in the same spot every single week or your entire week is the world. Right? And there's people who sit in front of you and around you and you kind of know where people are. It's kind of a normal situation.
And then sometimes you see new faces. But there are certain things that can happen in a service that can kind of get your attention. Well, apparently there have been a guy there. It says that he'd been in the synagogue and that Jesus starts teaching.
And then something takes place that is not necessarily on the program of worship, right? Okay. This guy begins to scream out as having a demon inside of him asking, will you please leave me alone? Have you come here to destroy us?
Now, I want you to catch something because it seems like this guy was not just there the only day that Jesus had. It kind of infers if you look at the other gospel passages that kind of reference this situation. It seems like this guy, well, he came to synagogue all the time. He had been there through plenty of teaching when Pharisees would stand up and give their religious talks and church all their spiritual mumbo jumbo and it didn't bother him at all until a new preacher got there that day.
Someone who had authority and someone who spoke on behalf of God. See, evil was not threatened by religion, but it could not endure Jesus. Evil had been in the synagogue, sitting there, singing the songs, doing the deal, listening to teaching. But something took place that day that changed everything.
I just asked myself, how many services had that guy sat through? Unprovoked? You know, how many times had he been there and nothing bothers him? But when Jesus begins to speak, this guy who has a demon inside of him is going, I got to get out of here.
This is, this is, I know where the enemy is coming for it. He knows exactly what Jesus can do. The credentials of the religious elite did not intimidate the demonic here, but Christ did. The presence of Jesus Christ changed everything.
This guy had listened to numerous spiritual talks that didn't budge them at all, but when the word of God began to speak, something changed. And what's so interesting is when you've gone through the Gospel of Luke, the angels have known who Jesus is. His parents know, but yet you can tell there's some times they're still trying to figure this thing out. His hometown doesn't think he's a Messiah.
The first person in his adult life who really gets it right about Jesus' identity. Is he a carpenter? Is he a teacher? Is he a rabbi?
The demon possessed man goes, I know that is. I know exactly who that is. He says, you're the holy one of who? God.
A lot of question marks for a lot of people, not this guy. He knew exactly who he was, but I don't want you to miss this. Knowledge of Jesus' identity didn't save this guy, right? He knew the right information, but it hadn't transformed him.
Demons knew exactly who Jesus was, yet that knowledge could not save them. The demons knew that this was Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and yet it could not save them, the irony of it all was that demons confessed what people struggled to believe. The demons knew who Jesus was, but did not submit to him in faith. The demons recognized Jesus' identity, but are not redeemed by knowledge alone.
And can I just say this? Neither are you, friend. You might be able to tell me all these wonderful biblical truths. You might be able to quote me scripture.
Do you know that James chapter 2 verse 19 says that the demons believe in God and they shudder? They quiver at the thought. So if demons had the right theological belief, but we know that or not save them, what's the problem? Knowledge doesn't save you, but in this moment, they understood something and Jesus was going to call them to come out of this guy.
And with authority, he did just that. You know, it's always kind of interesting. Whenever I preach on spiritual warfare, the demonic, I always have this belief before the day starts, something's going to go off. Typically around where I would say the spiritual world loves to mess around in, called the AV of a church system.
And if you're wondering why does the whole stage look a little bit darker than it typically does, I don't know either. The lights are working all week long, but they won't work today. There's all kinds of situations that sometimes happen that can I let's just get the situation and kind of throw everything off. And so when I'm always thinking about ice on the road or technology not working or different things like that, it's really easy to go, well, maybe it's this, maybe it's this, but there's also kind of an understanding.
I don't know where you stand on this, but I am so old school enough and believe the Bible so much, I believe there is a real God and there's a real devil. I don't believe these two forces are equal at all. I believe that Jesus Christ will wipe before him with the devil very easily. It will be very simple for him, but I believe that there's a real spiritual force that I will be real for it to you and I.
And when you look at this passage, here's what I want you to understand, that these are mine. This guy comes in and Jesus says, be silent, come out of him and I love it. The demon comes out of him, but this important phrase, without hurting him. And when you look through the Gospel of Luke, you're going to see that anybody who has a demon inside of him, it's trying to hurt the person, to kill the person.
That's the goal. And Jesus is able to do this and the guy's okay somehow. And then Jesus does something that you and I would not expect him to do. Don't tell anybody.
Don't go around, right? Because when he goes through this, the next couple paragraphs, he's going to tell people to stop telling other people that I'm the son of God that's taking demons out. But yet these folks, it says verse 37, news about him begin to go out to every place in the vicinity. Here's what I want you to see.
Those who witness the authority of Jesus can't stay silent about it. They got to tell somebody. When he shows up and did what he did that day in worship, when that guy who all of sudden we saw this unbelievable power that was coming out of it, then all of a sudden Jesus calls this to come out and it happens right before us. Like we're going to have to tell somebody the crowd marveled at Jesus' power and authority and the word began to spread quickly.
The results were kind of, I would say attracting attention, right? Hey, he did this for that guy. What could he do for me? And so they start spreading the news everywhere in the vicinity, which just means this, the crowds are going to be bigger.
You know why? Because there are a lot of needy people in this world and I am one, you know? We all have stuff. We all want to come.
Jesus can you fix this? Can you address this? And so they all start running to Jesus. Now, I want you to know that once again, as I was kind of being silly about this, that some of you love studying these types of passages and some of you really would not like to think about it.
Some of you like, let's just move on. Okay? I don't want to think about this. I saw a scary movie one time and I don't know about this.
I don't want anybody here today to either avoid thinking about it, but I also don't want you to obsess about it either. There's a Christian singer back in the 70s and 80s. Some of you would know the name Keith Green. Okay?
Some of you don't know that is. Some of you listen to it. It's a complete trip on your own self. You know what I'm saying?
But he wrote a song basically one day saying about how it was great. He was writing it from perspective of the devil. He said, my life is so easy now because no one believes in me anymore. Nobody thinks that I'm doing anything anymore.
And so he's basically sharing how no one thinks like that. Now, I want to kind of talk through this because this is going to kind of launch into some other stuff throughout this gospel. We're going to have to hit on a few different places. But I want you to make sure you understand something because regardless of what movie that you have watched or what your uncle says, who has a lot of weird kind of posters in his room or whatever, and you know, you can't explain all the kind of spiritual warfare in mumbo jumbo.
Here's what I want you to know. There is a difference between what I would call demonic possession and oppression. Okay? If you have Jesus Christ inside you, you have responded, yes, to the gospel.
The Holy Spirit lives inside you and upon your soul, there is a sign that says no vacancy. Okay? A demon cannot enter into the soul of someone who is saved. You know why?
The Spirit of God is there. He takes up all of the room. Okay? Now, can a demon oppress?
Can a demon trip up? Can a demon distract? Oh, yeah, 100%. But it cannot possess a child of God.
Can a demon possess someone who does not have a Spirit of God? Yes. You're like, when the Bible times, I still believe in these times. I do.
Now, I'm saying that I want to make sure everybody locks in just for the next couple moments. Okay? If you start days off a little bit, I really need you to stay with me. Because if you hear half of what I'm going to say, you're going to talk to somebody and they're going to completely misquote me here.
But I want to read this. There's going to be a few examples through the gospel of Luke that we're going to see of demon possessed people that are hurting themselves, that are running around in crazy places, sometimes taking their clothes off, sometimes threatening other folks, and sometimes just seeing completely out of their mind. And I want you to be, I want to be honest with you that much of the characteristics that we see in the gospel of Luke are early similar to what doctors would return in our days as mental illness. Now, before you panic, I do not believe that every person with mental illness in our days has a demon.
But I do believe that there are some people that we classify as mentally ill that we may need to think it's more spiritual in nature. Does that make sense to you? I'll say it again, just so I don't get an email this week. Okay?
I do not think that every mental illness is demonic, but I do think some of them are. And I think sometimes we look at it and say, doctor, fix this medicine, fix that. And Jesus is going, actually, we need to deal with this one with something different. And if that frightens you or overwhelms you, I want you to know it shouldn't because I don't want to make you fearful here today.
And you go, well, this happened in Bible times. I'm also going to go into, because I don't want to give demons or the devil too much. I would say stage time that I can. But there have been times in my life where I have served in different contexts where I thought, you know what, when I'm reading in the gospel of Luke, seems very close to what I'm experiencing right here.
I can remember being at a camp in Georgia, a bunch of teenagers there, and I can remember the middle of service, someone preaching the gospel so clearly. And this young girl began to scream out against the person, began to run out of the room. And I watched adults try to constrain this young lady from trying to hurt herself. And it took about five or six grown men to hold her down.
And the only thing that got her to slow down was when we were reading God's word over her and preaching the gospel to her where she got calm. I have been in situations where I've been in the middle of Africa, in a group, in a crowd of people, and someone who I can tell is the witch doctor, locks into my eyes and continues to stare at me everywhere I go. And he walks up to me and says, so you're the pastor who's come here, aren't you? No idea.
He doesn't know me. I don't know him. There's some kind of weird vibe going on between the two of us. Like we're supposed to go in the back spiritual parking lot and fight.
I don't know, you know? I've been in a situation where someone is in a straight jacket and about to be sent away unless something happens. And everybody thinks this is mental illness and something inside me goes, I think we got something going on. The reason I give you those three examples, I don't want you to be fearful at all today, because I'll give you one even more powerful, the girl in Georgia or the witch doctor over in Africa or the person that was in the middle institution, I'll tell you one even bigger than that.
His name is Jesus. Because Jesus Christ rescued that girl in Georgia. And you know the next day she's actually leading people to Christ by her testimony because she said one day I used to pray to the devil and now Jesus Christ has changed my life and I want to share this with you. I remember what happened when the witch doctor finally threw away all those old things and started following Jesus Christ.
The entire village was transformed by it. I can remember what happened when that person was supposed to be sent away to a mental institution for the rest of their life woke up and said, Jesus redeemed me. I can finally see clearly again and testify as to that. I'm saying all this because don't fear the demons.
Fear the ones who are scared of him. Respect the one that can speak with such authority that even the darkness is driven back. Each of these individuals tell a story of the one who redeemed them and this is the power that Jesus has over darkness. Let me show you what Jesus has to power over sickness as well.
Verse 38 says, after he left the synagogue, you do what you're supposed to do when you've been to church, right? We need to eat something everybody. So he entered a guy by name of Simon's house. We're later going to know Simon is what name everybody?
Peter, right? So Simon Peter and him before he's been called as a disciple, Jesus and him apparently have a relationship and Simon's like, hey, I got a meal for you. It says, Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever and they asked him about her. So he stood over her, listen to this, and rebuked the fever and it left her.
She got up immediately and began to serve him. Okay, just pause for a second. I think it's kind of funny if you think about it. It's showing a little bit of a relational side of Jesus.
It's a very organic feeling. But I imagine Simon is, Simon soon to be Peter is very enthralled with Jesus and after the teaching, he's like, hey, no, no, we've been hanging out a little bit, getting into each other. Hey, you want to, where are you eating after church today, right? I got a place here.
I'm actually almost drifting. Jesus didn't have a home at this point. He's like, I don't know where are you going? He's like, hi, my mother-in-law kicks a great casserole.
Would you like to come over to her house? Like, sure. And so they go over there and she's sick and he's sitting there going, oh, no, what are we going to do? Now, in Jewish customs, this will be fine because Sabbath was Saturday so they didn't.
And I love the fact that Jesus, who's been preaching in a synagogue, is just thinking through ministry just like he was when he goes to a home. It's not different for him. Anywhere that he goes, ministry work and takes place, you know? Jesus's authority was not confined to religious spaces.
It followed him into homes. And so Jesus comes in and heals Simon's mother-in-law of a severe fever. And I think it's just really amazing to think through that. Here's this relational guy.
You don't know this and I don't want to go too far. But you just wonder if Simon's like, hey man, if you're hungry and I'm hungry and you know what my wife really would appreciate, can you heal my mother-in-law? Okay, right? Some of you would be like, oh no, just let her be sick a little bit longer.
Okay, I don't know how you think through okay things. But in this situation, Jesus heals his mother-in-law. And this also can become quite a problem because someone has asked me this reading this passage before this week and I'm glad you're thinking critically about this. Wait a minute.
How does this happen? Because in the Catholic church, for example, like the Pope is not supposed to have a wife. And here's the first pope and apparently he was married, right? So people say, well, how exactly is this?
Well, I want you to know that Catholics would deny this first great news nine five says that Peter was married. But they do expect that when you become a, in the clearest see, right, that you're going to become someone who's in the ministry that you need to practice and imitate Jesus and not Peter. But what we're showing here is that the first leader of the early church was someone who was married, who had a mother-in-law, who had a home, who had a job, who was just doing natural kind of everyday things. And yet he had a specific need that was somehow needing to be addressed.
And how was it addressed? It's addressed by Jesus. And I want you to miss what it says here in verse 39. I would think that it said he stood over her and healed her.
But that's not the verb that he uses, was it? Because in the first paragraph, right, he says he stood over this unclean spirit, this demonic spirit, and said he rebuked him. And now he's over this lady in her house and she's got a fever and it does not say he healed her. He says he what?
He rebukes it. He rebukes the fever. And I don't know if that just hits you a little funny, but it does hit me a little funny, you know. I think it's so interesting to see this, but I want you to see how these two passages go so well together because demons and disease expose a fallen creation.
Jesus came to restore. He rebukes the demonic. He also rebukes the disease. And why is that so important?
Why not healed? Because I want you to know something. Sickness reveals something dark. Sickness reveals this is not the way things ought to be.
In the Garden of Eden before sin, can I tell you what was not present? Sickness. And can I tell you what the new heaven and the new earth will not have? Sickness.
This is not the way that we were supposed to be, but we live in a broken world where fallen people and here we are. He reveals something dark. He rebukes the demon. He rebukes the sickness.
Sickness, by the way. It is a result if you think about it. Now I don't want you all to think in one of those TV preachers that says you got to review every fever that you got. Okay, maybe you should try.
And you go, well, pastors, every sickness got to deem him behind it. No, maybe sometimes you just don't wash your hands. I don't know. Okay.
There's a lot of different reasons you can think through this, but I want you to trace this on. Thank you with me. Is sickness a result of the devil's influence? Well, he's rebuking it and it's sickness.
And sickness is a result of the fall and fall is a result of sin. And sin is a result of his lies and lies come from who the father of lies, which is Satan. The reason we are in the world that we are is because we believe the lies of the devil and we are in this condition. Now the word rebuke, actually, I love this.
It means to muzzle the animal. Here's this animal who's going to danger you, just strap this thing on a calm down. You can't get you sickness. No, no, no, no.
This demon, no, no, no, no, no. Let's muzzle this animal. The demons know who Jesus is. Even this sickness knows who Jesus is.
And I think it's so cool here because as soon as she gets healed, what does she do? She's like, some of y'all, somebody's in the house and you're like, hey, how do you think? I just had a meal. We're going to eat something else.
You know what I'm saying? She is the original, just hospitable person who wants to care for everybody. She gets up. She's healed.
And follow you ready for this? The healing was not the end game. It was a path to something else for her. It wasn't just, I'm healed.
It's now that I'm healed. What can I do for somebody else? Restoration that stops with us misses the point. Healed people help people.
If restoration just ends with you being restored and all you do is talk about it. I don't know if you understand why you were restored in the first place. So you used to be broke and now you got financial means. Is the goal financial means?
No, the goal is generosity. Hey, I used to be sick and I couldn't help anybody, but now I'm whole and I can just, and I feel a whole lot better. Is the job now to sit around and watch TV all the time? No, get up and do something.
Healed people. Help people. This healing is immediate, it's complete. It's evidence by her service.
The restoration leads naturally to worship. Express through service. And the God's grace through Jesus restores her not just to help, but to a purpose to do something. I think this is so amazing because as she is healed, she wants to help.
She gets up. She gets to serve. She gets to help other people in her home. We are so blessed with some wonderful neighbors around us, but I am really about to get into a serious argument with two of our senior adults that are right beside us because every time I try to get my kids to do something kind and just be a good neighbor to them, they're going to cook us something.
And I'm literally having to threaten them. Do not cook us anything else. Okay. I mean, you're like, what is this problem?
Okay. It's like my daughter will take the trash out so they don't have to walk down their street driveway and they're like, we fixed her some brownies. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, she doesn't need brownies. She's just learning to be a good neighbor.
The boys go and pick up some sticks at the fall and get her a storm and they come in and they basically just give all these wonderful treats to them. We want to show how thankful we are. I mean, no, no, no, they're learning to be able to just do something nice and don't expect anything in return. Because, well, I don't care I'm older and I can do whatever I want to drive us.
Okay. That's how she is. Then she got a little smart with me last week because I was trying to discreetly shovel snow and ice off of her footsteps. But some of you senior adults, I thought you weren't tech savvy, but your kids keep giving you all these tech gadgets.
You know what I'm saying? And so I'm sitting there on the shovel and all of a sudden I see the ring doorbell camera come on. Oh gosh, you got me? You know, so she comes out.
She's like, what are you doing? I was like, I don't want you guys be coming down these stairs like this, whatever. And she says, I'm worried that this was two weeks ago. She goes, I'm really worried about this storm.
I said, wow. And she said, well, Pastor Travis, she said, I've lived with you now for I've been out beside you for I don't know how many years she said, well, when I look out Sunday morning and your truck was in your driveway, I looked at my husband said, this storm must be bad. Pastor Travis canceled church. That's how bad it was.
Okay. She's like, you never canceled like anything else. She said, I knew this was going to be serious. And I said, no, it's fine.
And you know, I just want to make sure your steps are good. That woman, she cooked us a lasagna that will change your life. You know what I'm saying? I want to be angry at her.
But I mean, I just, I thought, please don't do this. She's like, well, you did that. I said, I know it. But what's her mindset?
She's like, God, the woman, he goes, if I've got the opportunity and if something good has been done to me, I just want to bless somebody, I just want to encourage somebody and I want to get mad at her. But you all have a better person because it was a spiritual experience. You know what I'm saying? Like, well, we ain't that I just felt like worshiping.
I think I had a hand raised. You know, I was there. It is a, but what happens when you really get your life changed, you want to help somebody. And this is what Peter's mother-in-law does.
Jesus has power over the darkness. He has power over the sickness. But I don't want you to miss something. The reason he came was to understand when the son was setting, all those who had anyone sick with various diseases brought them in.
You hear what happened to Peter's mother-in-law? Okay. And as he laid hands, listen, on each one of them, he healed them. Also demons were coming out of many.
Here's the other option, right? Shouting and saying, you're the son of God. But he reviewed them and went out and allowed them to speak because they knew he was Messiah. Okay.
When it was day, he went out and made his way to a deserted place. But the crowds were searching for him. They came to him and tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said to them, it is necessary for me to proclaim the good news of the gospel about the kingdom of God to the other towns also because I was sent for this purpose.
And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Do you see what Jesus just did here? This is huge for us to understand. Sunset, everybody is bringing people who are sick to Jesus.
And yet, Jesus, it says, at some point, he is healed. He is rebuked. Sickness, again and again. He's rebuked demons again and again.
And then it says he's trying to go out to a deserted place. This gives me a lot of encouragement because I go, so Jesus needs some quiet time too. Okay. Have you all ever in a moment?
You're like, I'm all people out. I need a moment. I mean, honestly, if you think about it, I was reading this passage this week and I thought about how Jesus probably can connect with a lot of you mothers, especially mothers or preschoolers right now. Think about it.
Okay. I mean, here he is. A day in the life of Jesus, dealing with sick people, right? Dealing with people that probably need a demon cast out of them.
Okay. Now you'll follow me. Okay. We've got now, rebuking all manner of people.
It just won't five minutes of quiet. You know what I'm saying? I mean, for a mother preschooler, you're like, I am more like Jesus than I actually thought. That's what I can feel like some days.
And yet, what happens? He continues to minister. You catch a verses 40 and 41. He doesn't just do mass healing.
You know, all right, I'll heal all of you. Go away. Okay. Each one, each person, individual, by name, specific situation, gives himself out though the needs were endless.
Jesus gave personal care rather than mass treatment. Though the needs were endless. Jesus gave personal care rather than just mass treatment. Jesus personally lays hands on each one.
The demons again, a tip to identify him. Jesus silences each one of them. And yet he is doing something. He's trying to make sure he's controlling the narrative here because Jesus' goal was not that the word would get out.
Here's the guy who can fix all of your temporal issues. Could he do it? Obviously he could. But he's not looking for a long line of needy people who want demons and sickness cast out of them.
He's come to do something that's actually more long term. And so verse 42, you see the issue. The crowds are searching for him and he keeps moving on from them. Why?
He says there's people in other towns that need to hear the message. I started this whole section with he was preaching and then he starts meeting needs. And yet, there are other cities who've not heard a message yet and he needs to get there. But there are people saying, don't leave Jesus.
We got a line of sick people over here. We got a line of issues over here. And we're just going to continue to give you need after need after need. And you know what?
He never would have gotten to the message that could change other people's life. You'll never obey God's will while trying to meet everyone's expectations. And if Jesus had tried to fulfill what everybody else wanted him to do, he would have kept meeting physical needs. Heading out blankets and never getting into bottles.
Helping with good works but never getting to good news. So Jesus withdraws time with the Father as a statesman faithful ministry. Knowing that true ministry does require that we get that. Jesus intentionally withdraw into a desperate place but then eventually moving towards other people who have yet to hear the news.
If you think about it, darkness and sickness are symptoms of the biggest issue of our lives. Lostness. Darkness and sickness are just symptoms of the true issue going on inside of us. So in verse 43 and 44, Jesus says, I've been here a while but I need to leave now.
Why? Because I have good news to share with other people. Not to say he doesn't care about the needs but there's always going to be more needs out there. But in the most important ones he knows he has to address.
Jesus refused to let good deeds replace the good news. Jesus refused to allow his life to somehow let the blankets take away the bottles. Did he give out the blankets? Of course he did.
And oftentimes, think through this way, sometimes the good deeds open the door for the good news, right? In all honesty, there are some people in our world today that if we don't do good deeds for, they will not be around long enough to hear good news. Oftentimes in this Gospel, we're going to see Jesus meet a tangible need and then it opens the door to address the main one, our spiritual condition. And he says very clearly here that his authority is comprehensive.
It is spiritual, physical, doctrinal, you got it, right? Deliverance was often take the kingdom but it did not replace proclamation. Jesus stated what his mission was to preach the kingdom of God to the other towns and so that mission defined his movement. Jesus continues preaching throughout Judea, going along teaching and not just miraculous signs being what defined his mission.
Now, this is where it comes down for us. I asked you a question at the beginning of the sermon, which is more important for the homeless community in Greenville County as a blanket or a Bible. I believe we need to give both. But I also believe that this giving out a blanket makes us feel better about ourselves and it's more challenging for us to give the Bible.
This is easy for me. This is very easy for me to give. But to look at someone in the face and say, hey, I'm glad you're warm. I'm glad you got your knees met.
But how's your soul with the living God that one day you're going to have to meet? That's uncomfortable. So what I'm saying is, yes, the church needs to be able to give both. But if we don't get to a place where we are comfortable with the good news, you know what's going to happen?
We're never going to get around to the main thing. I understand this. That compassion that stops at earthly help falls short of eternal hope. If the compassion that we give to others, if it stops at earthly help, but falls short of eternal hope, we will have made people warm this side of eternity.
But that will not be their problem on the other side. We will take care of their needs now. But the greatest one they have is the one that is to come. I don't know exactly what the temperature is going to be tonight and you all know I don't trust those things anyway.
Can someone make it in this county another night or turn of a day without a blanket? Can they survive? Maybe, maybe not. Because someone make it through the turn of the next life without knowing the truth of God's word and having a saving relationship with Jesus, the answer is no.
And so I know that in this church and in our culture, you have been taught a very simple and profound and I think a good lesson. Jesus can fix a lot in your life. But I want to give you the greatest lesson. He's come to do more than just fix temporal things in your life.
Can Jesus fix your marriage? Yes. Some of you need to surrender that and let him start doing some work. Can Jesus help your parenting a whole lot better than what world's ideas on parenting will be?
I can promise you that. Can Jesus fix your finances? Yep. He sure can.
Can Jesus address your health concerns right now? You better believe he can. Can Jesus fix the politics of our country? He is the only one who can, right?
Can Jesus fix what's broken in this world? Absolutely. But all of those things are temporary and we put things on our prayer list that keep people out of going to heaven rather than those who can go to heaven. So many things are we don't want this sickness to happen.
We don't want these bad things. We want people alive here on earth. But our prayers are work needs to be. We want people alive for eternity in the presence of Jesus Christ.
That's where it goes. That's why we hand out blankets so that we can get to the Bibles. That's why we do good needs so that we can get to the good news. I know you want Jesus to fix all those areas but all those are temporary.
You need more because we were made for more. They need more because they were made for more. So what do we do from this? As a church, when we get opportunities to hand out one of these, hand it out.
No expectation, right? Not I'll give you this blanket. If you listen to my Bible study, okay, that's not that. Sometimes given up blanket, someone's going, thank you for that allows me to say, no, can I tell you something even more important?
I mean, you can speak to this. But be careful that this doesn't make you feel so much better that you never get to this. Be careful that the easy task of this doesn't alleviate us from the true work that Jesus sent us for to preach the good news. Hey, church, you never have to ask to give good deeds, okay?
You don't have to ask my permission. Make sure if you got the good deeds that the good news comes with it as well. Let's pray.