Sermon: Overcoming the Strong Man (Luke 11:14-28) – Grant Vissers

Good morning. Who's feeling great after the

time change? I'm feeling great after I I was

awake at 5:00 not because I wanted to be awake at 5:00.

Good morning. If I'm a new face, I wanna say

welcome, welcome to court, right.

It's good to have you all with us.

My name is Grant and I'm one of the pastors here at the church.

And in a minute I want to give you the heads up.

We're gonna jump into Luke Chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

So I'm not going to give you the whole 10 chapter how we got to

here. We'd be here until next week.

But if you are flying in kind of newer on this series, we are

working our way through the gospel of Luke.

And one of the reasons why we're doing that is because we just

believe that it's important to get the text in front of us and

not to jump around a whole lot, but simply to work our way

slowly through an entire book. And so we've been doing that 10

chapters all the way through. Now we're into 11.

If you're newer to the Bible, Luke is almost all the way to

the end of the book. And so if you want a Bible to

follow along inside of to read along with me, we've got Bibles

at the back of the sanctuary over here.

You're going to start hearing me say this until they all

disappear. If you want to take those home,

please, please take it home. If you don't have a Bible, if

you have somebody you want to give a Bible to, we would love

to run out of Bibles. I think that would be a great

story for the church to tell. Alright, the church that ran out

of Bibles, we will happily buy more.

OK, so those are there. We're also going to have it on

the screen. I'm going to begin though, just

by slowly reading us through a few of these verses in Luke

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11. So hopefully that gave you a

little bit of time to find it if you want to pull it up on a

phone as well. I will not think that you're

texting until I start hearing those little like Ding, Ding,

Ding. So just like turn, you know,

turn on silent if you're going to also text as we read.

OK, great. I told you, feeling great.

Time change. Love it.

Let me pray. God, thanks for your love and

your grace and thanks that that's the reason why we gather.

Like it's your Spirit who does this, who gathers us together,

calls us. The church thinks that you do

that. And some of us run in like we're

feeling great and some of us stumble in and we're feeling

weary. And some of us trip and fall and

we kind of find our way here. Some of us are drug along.

We're here because somebody decided to lift us up and carry

us in. So yeah, thanks to the community

is where you designed us to be. And so wherever we are, each of

us on our journey with you, our relationship to you, yet I pray

that we, each one of us would find here a community that is

shaped, that is formed by your love and by Your grace and by

prayer and in worship by this book that we have your word to

us. So Gab, as we read, would you

speak to us? Whatever's rattling around in

our hearts and in our minds and our souls and our bodies?

God, would you steal us? Now what do you call us?

And God, I pray that we would hear your voice.

So would you do that? I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

So I'm gonna begin reading at verse 14 of Chapter 11 and read

through to verse 28, and then we'll work our way through some

of it. So it says Jesus was driving out

a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who

had been mute spoke and the crowd was amazed.

But some of them said by Beelzebul, the Prince of demons,

he is driving out demons. Others tested him by asking a

sign from heaven. Jesus knew their thoughts and

said to them, Any Kingdom divided against itself will be

ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall.

If Satan is divided against himself, how can his Kingdom

stand? I say this because you claim

that I drive out demons by Beelzebul.

Now if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your

followers drive them out? So then they will be your

judges. But if I drive out demons by the

finger of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his

possessions are safe. But when someone stronger

attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which

the man trusted and divides up his plunder.

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not

gather with me scatters. When an impure spirit comes out

of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest, and

does not find it. Then it says, I will return to

the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the

house swept clean and put in order.

Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than

itself, and they go in and live there, and the final condition

of that person is worse than the first.

As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd

called out. Blessed is the mother who gave

you birth and nursed you, and he that's Jesus replied.

Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and obey

it. So if there's ever been a week

where I want to give a plug to you listening to the podcast,

this would be it. Because we're not gonna get to

every single thing in this short ish section of Chapter 11.

We're not even through Chapter 11 yet, so we're not gonna touch

on everything. So I would encourage you.

I would say, hey, like if you've got something hanging at the end

of this sermon, you're like, you didn't talk about like this one

thing, TuneIn, send that one thing to us in an e-mail or

text. Give us a shout and maybe we'll

talk about it on the on the podcast this week.

But that's just an opportunity here.

Let me say this much. That's an opportunity for us not

to teach you more. Like that's not our our hope and

our heart behind it. It's not like an opportunity for

you just to like, go listen to us more of our voices.

What it is, we hope is a conversation that helps you

continue to also have your own conversations, be it around the

dinner table or in the car when you commute, driving to and from

sports with a spouse, with a friend, partner, like whoever

you've got going on in your life.

Like we want you to have more meaningful conversations about

these things. And so that's our hope.

Yep, we're going to jump in and cover a lot of different things,

but our hope is to encourage you to have conversations.

So disclaimer #1 I don't know if you've ever had this experience,

but when we sold our house in Hamilton, so this was over a

year ago, we were just reminiscing because it was like

a year to the day, October 15th, that we moved into our new house

and go off. But when we sold our house and

moved here to Guelph, our real estate agent came in and did

some staging, like some she called it like easy staging or

soft staging or something like that.

Anyway, she what she said is that she would use some of our

furniture, emphasis on some and bring in some decorative

furniture and items of her own to make our house look more

appealing to buy. Like this is the thing, you

clean your house all up and then somebody comes in, they makes it

look like not your house so that it looks better to sell.

And this is supposed to work. And I guess it did.

So the key though, for us was, like I said, before that could

happen, before our real estate agent could come in with her

friends and stage our stuff to make it look better than it is,

we had to empty out of our House of like 90% of our own stuff.

Like, and I don't know that I'm exaggerating.

We boxed everything up and my brother showed up with a

trailer, a big trailer, closed trailer.

You could fit multiple snowmobiles in said trailer.

And we filled it with so much of our stuff and we sent it off to

his place. And you couldn't open a closet.

We're like, please just don't open the closets.

Everything is clean, we promise. But if you open it up, floor to

ceiling boxes of the rest of our stuff hidden away to make our

house look better, to sell it, our house was clean.

Oh my goodness, it was cleaner than it had been in five years,

the whole five years we lived there.

It was never as clean as it was during this process of Cliff

selling the house, but it was also empty.

I remember walking around the house going like man, like this

thing lacks the very thing that it's supposed to be like it.

It was missing us. It lacked the people, it lacked

our family, it lacked personality and and yes, on

occasion, it lacked a mess of everyday life that comes along

with real life. It was empty.

And, and the other thing that I noticed about this house that

was empty was no matter how hard I tried, our stuff would creep

back into it. So we get a phone call or a text

and we like, OK, you got a showing at 2:30 today.

Do you approve it? Yes, we want to approve it.

What time is it, 158? OK.

And we're like, great, Connie, like, take the girls, go to the

park. And I was like, frantically go

through all the spaces, cleaning it again because you know how

this works? Like, no space stays empty for

long. Things creep back in and yes,

again, sometimes the mess of life can creep back in and I

wonder, maybe you've noticed the same thing.

You finally get carve out time like you got.

We're gonna take a whole day and we're gonna do a deep clean on

our house. We're gonna focus on one space.

Usually it's the garage. Like, we're gonna clean out that

garage and you do it. You actually do it.

You clear your schedule. Maybe you even invite people

over here like, hey, pizza, help us clean, right?

Game on and you do it. You clean the space and you do

the dump. Run.

That's like one of the most therapeutic things you can ever

do. Well, it doesn't go to the dump.

You donate, right? You give stuff away, boxes are

emptied and the room is clean. You organize it and you close

the door and the next day you open the door and it's filled

with stuff again. Like this is how it works,

right? Next day filled with things

again. Empty spaces don't stay empty

for long. A clean house becomes filled

with things like best intentions.

Clutter creeps in, bad habits return.

But life also, like our spaces, can feel the same way.

Like they don't stay empty for long.

They don't stay free of clutter for long.

They fill with things and people and time and commitments and

stuff to do and stuff to buy that you don't really need in

the 1st place. But we fill our lives with

things and, and eventually, I don't know if you felt this, but

like, our lives can feel like they're filled up to your

eyeballs with all of the things to do and all the errands to run

and work to be completed and deadlines to meet and kids to

raise and grandkids to visit. And when, like, is the vacation

that we talked about 3 years ago actually gonna happen?

When are we gonna slow down? When are we gonna empty our life

of what feels like chaos? The reality though is that so

often we don't do that very thing that we know we need to,

which is to empty it of some of the things that cause it to be

too full and overly noisy and chaotic, right?

In the end, maybe we don't get the rest that we know we need or

we don't develop and practice good habits.

Instead. I think what many of us do when

life feels chaotic and when your stress is high and when anxiety

is running a little bit wild and like will slow down when you

can't shut off the voice. This is a good indicator when

you can't shut off the voice inside of your head.

When you lay down to go to sleep and your mind is just running

over and over and over all of the things that you haven't done

or that you did do that you shouldn't have done or that you

need to still do tomorrow. Rather than addressing the noise

in the business, what I think many of us end up doing is we

add to it. We consume more content.

We watch another movie or we find another TV show to binge.

We turn something on and be like, I'm just gonna force that

voice to shut up. I'm like, hey, I don't wanna

listen to you, so I'm gonna drown it out with something

else. Maybe it's that we purchase

another thing or we say yes to another commitment because we

don't wanna slow down and feel what we're feeling or hear, hear

what we are hearing and address what's going on inside of our

minds and inside of our souls and inside of our lives and our

spaces around us. And so we just simply keep

consuming and filling it with more, and we don't slow down.

Empty spaces don't stay empty for long.

And we fill the space that we have, and it can be physical

space and it can be mental space, and it can be spiritual

space. Luke 11.

Jesus gives us this bizarre warning.

And it is, it's bizarre. It sounds strange.

She says when an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes

through arid places seeking rest, doesn't find any.

Then it says, I will return to the house I left.

And when it arrives, it finds the house swept clean, great,

and put in order. OK, that sounds good.

Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than

itself, and they go in and live there.

And the final condition of that person is worse than the first

two things as we go. First, if you're here for the

first time or if you like are newer to Christianity, I love

that you're here. And I think this is one of the

best places for you to be as inside of church, Christian

community, doing life, figuring it out, wrestling it all

together. But you're being tossed into the

deep end here, not because of anything profound that I'm gonna

say, but simply because of what we're reading.

So that's not what number 2, I think probably all of us helpful

for you all to hear when we read this think, hey, Jesus, wouldn't

it be better for the first guy just to stay the way he was?

Like, I can do that math. That's simple math.

One is less than 7. 7 sounds worse.

One of the things that we see in Jesus life through the lens of

these gospels is that Jesus regularly and routinely and kind

of all the way through casts out demons.

This is part of Jesus ministry, it's part of his life.

It is part of how he was as he navigated the world, as he

navigated what was physical and what we can see temporal and how

he navigated what his spiritual. And so we get these stories I

can look for Jesus casts a demon out of a man in a town called

Capernaum. And Luke 8, he heals a man who's

possessed by many demons. He's called Legion because there

are many. And that story involves a herd

of pigs. Luke chapter 8 if you want to go

Luke 8 · chapter mention

and read it. Luke 9 Jesus sends out his

disciples and what does it say? It says he gives them power and

authority to cast out all kinds of demons.

So this is power, this is authority, this is reality for

Jesus and his disciples. It happens throughout Jesus

ministry and what it is, is it is all part of God's plan to

roll out the Kingdom of God. This is all part of God's

Kingdom arriving on earth and pushing against the places and

spaces of darkness. And it's why at the beginning of

Jesus's ministry, and we've often referenced back to these

lines throughout our study, Jesus gets up and he reads from

the book of Isaiah. He says the Spirit of the Lord

is on me and because he is anointed me to proclaim good

news, he says I'm gonna proclaim it to the poor.

And he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and

recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to

proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

He says, hey, with this, with my arrival, with the kingdoms

arrival, there is the grace and favor of God to be experienced

and it is going to look like these things.

It is going to look like good news to the poor and freedom for

prisoners and healing for those who are physically ill.

And he says, listen, we're gonna set the oppressed free.

We're gonna push against these things, and the beautiful thing

about the way the Gospels traced Jesus's life is that he actually

begins to do it. He says This is why I've been

sent and now let me show you what it looks like.

And people are healed and they're not just healed

physically, they're healed relationally and spiritually and

they're forgiven. But they they aren't just

forgiven, they're restored into community, into right

relationship with people, with groups of people.

The kingdom's arrival is this wonderful mixture of healings

where it's never just spiritual and it's never just physical and

it's never just social. And that's why we see the same

word used often over and over again in the New Testament.

And the word, you don't remember it, it's so so.

But we can read it both as to save and to heal, that like with

God salvation comes God's healing and with God's healing

comes God's salvation. It means to save, to rescue, to

deliver, to heal, to be healed, to be forgiven, all of it

together. This is like holistic here is

your entire life back kind of Kingdom.

And that's what we begin to see play out in this interaction

between Jesus and this man, the demon and these crowd onlooker

people says Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute.

And when the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke.

So there's immediately evidence that this has happened and the

crowd was amazed. But some of them said by

Beelzebub, the Prince of demons, he is driving out demons.

Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.

Others tested him. So here's the context.

Jesus has arrived. Jesus is healing.

A man is possessed by a demon that caused this man to be mute.

So that is, he couldn't or wouldn't speak.

And the people, they see Jesus heal the man.

They see the evidence of the healing.

The man speaks. And then they begin to wonder.

And I think what they begin to wonder is like, who is this guy?

Who is this guy really? Because they see the demon being

cast out. They see this man healed and it

says they are a crowds are amazed.

They're filled with wonder or awe, like astonishments like,

well, really, no, there's a little bit of like mystery here.

We don't know what's happening. And I think really what ends up

happening in their hearts and in their minds is that they begin

to think to themselves, like, wait a minute, like, how is this

guy doing what he's doing? Like who is he?

And so they're wonder it it turns to this kind of like

question and even toward like skepticism.

And I'm not saying that skepticism is bad.

It has its right place. What I am saying is I think it's

interesting how the human heart can be prone towards cynicism

and even like resentment. And it's all in this attempt to

hold things out of distance. Because I, I think these guys,

they see Jesus doing what he is doing and in their minds, like

if he really is who he says he is, then that means I need to

now live differently. That is going to have an

implication on my life. That's going to have an

implication on who and how I am in the world and what we thought

might not be what we continue to think and how we are might not

continue to be who we are moving forward.

Like if Jesus is right about who he is, they, these people are

now required to live differently.

And so they start saying to themselves, no, like by

Beelzebul, the Prince of demons. This is at this point in Jesus's

life at this point in in sort of what history.

This is simply a word for Satan. Helpful though, to know this.

It actually means Lord of the flies and even like dung dung

God. It's it's not a great term.

It's not even necessarily like a powerful term.

It's kind of like this guy on the side, simply Satan by be

honest of all, by Satan, the Prince of demons.

He is driving out demons. So in their mind, they're like,

no, it would be better for us if Jesus is doing what he's doing

because of a different power, because of the eligible, but

because of Satan, because of his power, like we don't want.

If Jesus is living and acting with the power and authority of

God, then that means I need to live differently.

But if we can hold them at a distance and he's acting with

Satan's authority or power, then that doesn't have anything to do

with us. And we can keep that over here,

and we can keep our lives tidy and neat in this corner.

If Jesus is right, then they now need to live differently and,

and I think Jesus names the attention.

In fact, it says Jesus knew their thoughts.

We get this little editorial. And then he said to them, any

Kingdom divided against itself will be ruined.

Like no, you can't listen common sense.

A house divided against itself will fall.

If Satan is driving is divided rather against himself, how can

his Kingdom stand? In other words, it can't.

This is the implication. It cannot stand if it's divided

amongst itself. But, and this is what I want you

to see, but if I drive out demons by the finger of God,

this is a power, authority. It is a call back actually to

the Old Testament, but means the authority, the power, the

presence of God. Then the Kingdom of God has come

upon you, says listen. Like if I drive out demons by

the power of Satan, game over. Like what's the point?

Divided Kingdom gonna fall. Game over.

But if I drive demons out by the power of God, he says, then it's

game on the Kingdom coming out there.

Wherever there is means the Kingdom coming in here.

It demands that something in me change, and it requires in

something that something in you change.

The Kingdom of God confronts the places of sin and death in the

world. Yes, absolutely.

And the Kingdom of God confronts the places of sin and death in

my life and in your life. The real presence of God, the

Holy Spirit is disarming the devil's power over peoples

lives. That's what Jesus declares with

this one line, that the power of Satan in the world is being

driven out as the Kingdom of God arrives.

And that has very real implications for your life and

for my life. You see, I don't know about you,

but I think we can like it when the Kingdom of God confronts sin

and death out there in the world at a distance from us, from me,

where I can watch it happen, but we become a little bit more

uncomfortable. I think we tend to resist when

the Kingdom of God confronts sin and death in here.

I think we can end up living lives that want the social

gospel to heal all of our relationships and to make life

just that much better. We want the justice gospel to

heal our world like God. Do it.

Do it out there. We want the physical gospel to

heal our diseases, our disease, but our fundamental disease is

actually a disk is it's this like unending longing and pulled

toward Jesus and toward the Kingdom of God and what God is

doing in the world and how you've been created to live.

And Ron Rolheiser calls it a congenital, all embracing ache

that prevents us from being at peace.

Ultimately, outside of a deep and knowing relationship with

God. You're gonna live in this

perpetual season of anxiety driven like ache, longing not

quite resolved, wondering like, am I created for something a

little bit more outside of God's presence?

You are going to feel that all throughout your life.

This is what Augustine says famous quote when he writes.

You have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our heart is

restless until it rests in You. You've been created not to know

this perpetual treadmill throw you off the end of it kind of

life and to know a life of deep and meaningful rest.

And but that only comes because of God's salvation, God's saving

life, and in order to know, in order to have that kind of deep

and knowing relationship with God, that everything of your

life has to be surrendered. And This is why we hold it at a

distance, because this is the deepest, hardest, most hurt,

ugliest, worst, most shameful parts of your life need to be

all of them surrendered to Jesus.

What does that look like? So here, like, Are you ready to?

Are you ready for the gospel? Is that Jesus puts it When a

strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions

are safe. But when someone stronger

attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which

the man trusted and divides up his plunder.

The strongman, fully armed, guards his house like

possessions. Everything that's safe, that's

Satan. The strong man here is Satan,

but when someone stronger attacks and overpowers, that's

Jesus. And that's the hope of the

gospel. No matter what it is that you've

experienced, no matter what it is that you're going through.

Like here it is in five words. Jesus is the stronger man.

That's the gospel in five words. When we talk about the devil, I

think it can lead to a couple of different things going on in our

minds. Alright, first, like we can, you

know, kind of dismiss it and even hyper personify the devil

in a way that leads actually at the end of the day to apathy

like this toward not caring about it at all.

And and the devil becomes this in this idea that's like

childish boogeyman, Halloween esque type thing that we can

just easily dismiss and like, it's silly, right?

But what's that line? There's a line.

The finest trick, the devil like of the devil.

It's to persuade you that he does not exist, right?

So that's number one. We can kind of like dismiss it

#2 Second, I think we can hyper spiritualize and dwell on the

devil or Satan or evil or demons.

Like in a way that leads to a very real like, grip you at

night, keep you awake, scare you to just never fall asleep kind

of fear, right? That we can kind of hold on to

this reality, like, OK, Jesus and the devil.

Like we can think about these things as like, are you like 2

opposing forces, right? Like holding our breath, like

who's gonna win? And we can live in fear kind of

waiting, like who's gonna win? And I gotta tell you, like this

isn't, this is not like World Series Game 7.

Who's gonna win? It's too soon, I know.

What would Jesus points us to in a very real way, is that you

don't have to lay awake wondering who's gonna win.

You don't have to lay awake in fear going OK, Jesus like the

devil. Jesus like who's on top?

Who's who's gonna win the day? Jesus is the stronger man.

This mini parable, Alright, Jesus uses it to put the devil

in his place. Not 2 opposing forces of good

and evil, not any kind of holding our breath, not waiting

to see who's gonna be victorious.

Jesus is victorious. There's a story about Martin

Luther who said, and this may or may not have happened, but the

story is great. Martin Luther used to tie and

this is true. He talked about how he himself

would regularly at night do battle with the devil, and he

would lay awake and he would do battle with the devil.

He would think and dwell and become anxious and fearful and

but he did this so much and he learned to claim Jesus's victory

in very real ways, so strongly that he said, there's a story

about one night he woke up and he rolled over and he looks and

he sees the devil. He's like, oh, it's only you.

He rolled over and he goes back to sleep.

There's power in the name of Jesus.

There's power in the name of Jesus.

Not just to push against the power of evil, but to defeat it.

Because that's what Jesus does. On the cross, Jesus defeats

evil, but that same power also requires an ask something of us,

and that is the honest, raw, bare your heart kind of

vulnerability. I want you to notice something

here as we kind of move toward wrapping up and change colours

here so someone stronger attacks overpowers him.

He takes away the armor in which the man trusted and then he

divides up like disperses, gets rid of his plunder.

It's really easy again, I think the hyper spiritualize that and

to keep it at a distance again to keep it metaphorical or like

only about evil in the world, but in a very real way.

Here's what Jesus is saying. The experience that wounded you

so deeply that you now walk with a limp.

The thing that allows you to view yourself just a little bit

better and maybe even just a little bit better than everybody

around you. The habit that you have that you

think soothes your soul but really only helps you escape

from yourself and only for a minute.

The guilt and the shame that you carry around and that makes you

think. If they only knew feeling knew

what goes on over here, the things that I carry around.

Like if they only knew then that surely it wouldn't apply to me.

The things of death that you carry around with you every

single day and that hold on to your heart and hold on to your

mind and that hold your life captive, those are the things

that Jesus divides and plunders, and that's the armor that Jesus

longs to take away and strip you of.

All of the things that cause you to to rely on yourself.

All of the things that hold Jesus at a distance.

You brag. I'm gonna keep my own little

thing over here because it makes me feel just good enough.

All of those things that rattle around in your heart and in your

mind, and if God's doing anything in you, it's the thing

that you're thinking of right now.

Those are the things that Jesus wants to divide up and plunder

and defeat and destroy and carve out of your life.

These are the things that Jesus takes away.

But that's not surface level healing.

That's hard and deep and long. Walked out healing in The Voyage

of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis which beautiful book if you

haven't read it. Great book to start.

There's a boy named Eustace and Eustace has turned into a

dragon. And CS Lewis writes this better

than I could ever retell it. So I simply want to read a

section to you, but this is what Eustace says of the moment when

he's healed. He says.

I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all

over the place. But just as I was going to put

my feet into the water, I looked down and I saw that they were

all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly, just as they had been

before. Then the lion said You will have

to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can

tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now, so I just

lay flat down on my back and let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had

gone right into my heart, and when he began pulling the skin

off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt.

The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure

of feeling the stuff peel off. You know, if you've ever picked

a scab off a sore place, it hurts like billio, but it is

such fun to see it coming away. Well, he peeled the beastly

stuff right off, just as I thought.

I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't

hurt. And there it was, lying on the

grass, only ever so much thicker and darker and more knobbly

looking than the others had been.

And there I was, as smooth and soft as a peeled switch, and

smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me.

I didn't like that very much, for I was tender underneath.

Now I'd had no skin on and he threw me into the water.

Smarted like anything, but only for a moment, and that after

that it became perfectly delicious.

And as soon as I started swimming and splashing, I found

that all the pain had gone from my arm.

And then I saw why I turned into a boy again.

So we don't preach Narnia or CS Lewis, we preach Jesus.

But CS Lewis, man, he had a way, a beautiful way of capturing the

kind of deep, transforming work that Jesus longs to do in each

of our lives. And I gotta tell you what

happens in prayer. And it happens with confession,

and it happens alongside friends and fellow travellers along the

way. And it happens with good and

wise mentors, and it happens with counselors who are trained

to help you navigate the deepest hurts of your life in slowed

down ways. But it only happens because

Jesus has defeated sin and death on the cross.

And it only ultimately happens when you let Jesus get at you.

It's not something that you can work hard enough on your own to

do. You need Jesus to deal with the

worst and most painful parts of your life so that you can have

your life back in the way that it was meant to be lived.

Frederick Beechner. He wrote this book called The

Final Beast, which sounds like a video game.

But he says the worst isn't the last thing about the world.

He says it's the next to last thing.

The last thing is the best. It's the power from on high that

comes down into the world that wells up from the rock bottom

worst of the world, like a hidden spring.

So what I want to do is return all the way to that very awkward

beginning and Jesus is warning about the one and the seven.

So Jesus warns, says one goes out, gets 7, comes back.

It's very likely a warning to Israel as a nation, less about

the individual and more about collectively the people.

But it's the call of a prophet to a people to return to God and

to embrace again a dynamic relationship with Jesus through

the presence of the Holy Spirit. What Jesus is saying is allow

God to fill your heart and your mind and your life with His

Spirit. Allow that Spirit to be the

thing that dwells inside of you and fills you up to the fullest

measure of life that God's created you to live.

And it's the same Spirit that Jesus has just promised.

If you're here last week on that very last line, how much more

will your generous Father in heaven give you the Holy Spirit

when you ask Him? How much more?

And that same spirit is still the Spirit that God wants to

give you today to fill your life up to its fullest measure.

Let me pray. I gotta thank you for your

spirit, which does fill us as individuals and as your church.

Yeah, I, I know that many of us, like we wanna live with you at a

distance. And maybe we're kind of

wrestling through wanting benefits of knowing you, Jesus,

But we're struggling to name the thing or to allow you to go to

the deepest places of our hearts and our lives and root out all

of the little pieces of death that you long to, which is God.

If there's any of us here are sitting in that place, I pray

that you would remind us of Your love and Your grace.

I pray that you would make us bold to name those things just

even to one other person. Got to name and confess it

before you and then to learn this slowed down, hard

disciplined way of surrender. God thanks that at the end of

the day, this rides on you, not on us.

You're the one who longs to heal.

You're the one who longs to give us your spirit.

You're the one who longs for us to know life and to know it

abundantly. You're the one who can heal and

transform our lives. And yeah, we need you to do it.

So I pray today, would you do in the strong name of Jesus?

Well, man.