Remembering God – Luke 9:37-44 – Grant Vissers

OHP man, good morning. Good morning.

It's good to be with you. If you don't know me, my name is

Grant and I'm one of the pastors here at the church and it's

great to be together. 45 years. What a good anniversary.

You know, of the three churches that I have pastored, this is by

far and away. How do I put this like the

youngest the newest? I'm not sure which makes the

most sense, but the other two closer to 200 then to 50.

And one of the things that I absolutely love about that hymn

is we sing about great being is the faithfulness of God

generation after generation after generation.

And yet we also declare new mercies.

I see, right? And and so I love that tension

inside the the church, inside the community of faith, inside

of what God is doing. Like we stand on the shoulders

of generation after generation after generation, and yet we

also get to stand here and bear witness to God doing a new

thing. So it's a wonderful, wonderful

thing. Eugene Peterson had this line

and it was from early on in his ministry.

You're driving, I think, to his very first church.

So pastor, Presbyterian pastor in the States.

And he wrote in his book to young pastors, he says,

remember, God's been at work a lot longer, like way before you

ever showed up. And God will continue to be at

work far after you leave. And again, that's just a great

thing for each of us to hold on to.

We get to be here now. We get to witness God do what

he's doing in our lifetime. Amazing thing.

And we have to remember what God has done and those who've come

before. And we get to stand, and we get

to look and pray and hope and dream where God might be calling

us. So we're gonna be hanging out in

Luke 9, not 37 to 44 like you can see there.

OK, but Luke 9, let me pray. And then we're gonna begin by by

reading together. God, thanks for your love.

Thank you for your grace. We're grateful for all that

you're doing, grateful that you love us.

Yeah. We need you to speak into our

life. We need you to remind us who we

are. We need you to give us New Hope

and a fresh sense of your presence and how we do all of

it. Like we've said, standing on the

shoulders of generation after generation who've come before

us. And in in that we're

tremendously grateful. So we want to say thanks for all

of those who got together, dreamt up this place, prayed,

met, studied the Scriptures and and then felt convicted, this

deep conviction to plant a church here in this part of

Guelph. Yeah.

We pray that we wouldn't lose sight of that kind of mentality.

To gather and to pray, to lift, tie the name of Jesus and to

chase after what you're doing, what you want for our neck of

the woods, this area in Guelph. So God, thanks for your Kingdom

as it's coming. Thanks for these words that

remind us of it and I pray that you would speak to us in a new

way today in Jesus name, Amen. So I'm not sure if that's going

to go up for everyone or not and if I'm going to be able to do

that from here. But if not, it'll be here in a

few minutes. But let me read.

Luke 9 starting at verse 37, says The next day when they came

down from the mountain, a large crowd met him.

A man in the crowd called out. Teacher, I beg you to look at my

son, for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him, and he

suddenly screams. It throws him into convulsions

so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and

is destroying him. I begged your disciples to drive

it out, but they could not, You unbelieving and perverse

generation, Jesus replied. How long shall I stay with you

and put up with you? Bring your Son here.

Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the

ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the impure

spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his Father, and they

were all amazed at the greatness of God.

While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to

his disciples, Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you.

The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.

So my friend recently got married.

It was this summer and it was a great time.

And then they left, we all kind of left the wedding.

They left on their honeymoon. And like about 10 days later or

so I, I texted him and just said, hey, just checking in.

You know how, how are things? Well, quite away.

Did you get a little bit of a chance to rest and enjoy some

quiet? And he sent me this text message

back. I got this note from him.

He said. Just got back last night working

on re acclimatizing the real life well.

And I wonder if you've ever felt that kind of harsh adjustment

when you jump back into the rhythms and habits and routine

and requirements of day-to-day life.

This weekend Connie and I were watching a television show where

same thing, newly married couple.

Like about a month in, we're kind of lamenting the same

thing. And the one said to the other,

when can we get a break from real life?

Like the time was just flying too fast.

You know how this works? I think we all do.

You go away on vacation and things feel great.

The stress is gone. Like maybe your blood pressure

lowers and you begin to relax and like, you sleep really well.

You sleep through the night and then eventually you return and

real life hits you like a ton of bricks and maybe you've had a

really spiritual experience at like a conference or during

prayer. You're surrounded by others and

God's voices close and loud, and you're certain like this is

going to change your life. But then you return to work,

school, requirements, routine, it sets in.

And what was the loud voice from God now sounds like an echo of

the past. And like maybe you're even a

little bit unsure whether you heard it in the first place to

begin with. Maybe for you this summer it was

like, hey, I was away at camp and it was beautiful and amazing

and great, and I had like freedom for the first time and I

could make my own decisions. And then now you're back to

school and everybody has a plan for your life.

Real life just kind of hits mountaintop experiences.

You, you and I know this. They end, every single one of

them. You can't stay up there forever.

No matter how things go, no matter how great they are on the

mountaintop, eventually and inevitably you have to return

down the mountain and figure out this thing that we call quote,

real life. Jesus descends the mountain in

our passage with Peter, James and John.

And if you're newer, just kind of catching up, coming back into

your own September routine. Last week, what we saw is that

the three disciples have had a literal mountaintop experience

with Jesus. They've gone up the mountain

with Jesus and they've gone up the mountain.

Not only have they prayed, they've been together.

It's just them. They're away.

There are no crowds but Jesus, faith, faith and his clothes.

They, they shine white, as bright as lightning.

Moses and Elijah, they show up and they're talking with Jesus.

They speak and then there's this voice from heaven declares, This

is my son whom I love. I have chosen listen to him.

So this has been their mountain top experience.

God the Father is confirming the identity of Jesus, who he is,

his mission, why he was sent to the earth and what he has been

sent to do. And it like just 11 words or 13

syllables. They've witnessed the full glory

of God and they begin to see Jesus for who he really is, for

who truly is like Son of God, full display his glory.

It's amazing. It's filled with awe and wonder

and there were no crowds and there were no distractions and

there were no demands. Nobody's like impinging on their

time. It's them.

Jesus is there, filled with the presence of God.

But now they return. And so we read.

The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large

crowd met him. Teacher, I beg you, this man

says, calling out from the crowd.

Look at my son, I beg you. So the these four, Jesus, these

three disciples, they return, they returned to crowds and they

were turned to chaos, people shouting demands at Jesus,

begging, pleading with Jesus. They return to the demands of

people surrounding them in the crowds, pushing in to get a

glimpse of Jesus and what he might do in this moment.

You know, you and I might have a harder time identifying

sometimes with that mountaintop moment, but I think we have an

easy time relating to this moment.

When they come down the mountain, large crowd demands.

Teacher, I beg you, look at my son.

The demands of life and the demands of vocation immediately

placed back on Jesus's shoulders.

There's urgency like this is important, Jesus.

Like I know you've been away, but like we're in game on.

Like you gotta do what we're asking and hoping to demands.

Come on Jesus. Not only are the demands placed

immediately back on Jesus shoulders, but the weight of

being a disciple also returns. And so we see the Father

continues. The Spirit sees him.

He suddenly screams and throws him into convulsions that he

foams at the mouth. Mouth that scarcely ever leaves

him. It's destroying him.

So he listened. Like there's urgency here.

Help. I begged your disciples to drive

it out, but they could not. So not only now is this Father

approaching Jesus, saying, Hey, would you care?

Would you healed my son? Would you come?

Would you release him from this burden?

I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.

These are the disciples now who have been travelling with Jesus

and they've seen him perform miracles, that they've watched

him cast out demons. They've seen this very thing

done. They've stood by while he's

healed the sick. They themselves were saved from

the storm on the sea. They've experienced the power

that Jesus has. They collected extra food when

Jesus fed the 5000 like they went around and gathered up all

that remained. They were the ones who Jesus

called in close, the ones who Jesus gave power and authority

to drive out all kinds of demons and to cure diseases.

They're the ones who he calls in and says, hey, I'm sending you

out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Go and do the things that you've seen me do.

And what we see in the Gospel of Luke is it unfolds like early in

this chapter as they begin to do it, they don't go out and like

are immediately stumped. They go out and they take the

gospel with them. They take the Kingdom with them

and they begin to heal people. They begin to cast out demons.

They do the things that they saw Jesus do and and now they can't.

Now a father comes and begs them to heal his son, like he's not

even about himself. And these disciples, they can't

do it. You know, there are days where

it feels like your faith. He's on a mountaintop.

And there are also days where it appears like your faith falls

apart and feels like it fails and becomes powerless.

And this must have been one of those days for the disciples.

We've done the thing, now we can't.

We don't know why they can't heal this Suns man.

That could be that. They've grown arrogant in their

success. They've seen like the height of

it and like, yeah, we got it. Could be that they've not

maintained connection to the source, their source of power

through prayer. Like what do we see Jesus

repeatedly and consistently constantly doing is getting away

and praying? Could be that they don't develop

the same discipline. It could be.

Could be that they hear Jesus predicting his death and that

they become afraid and fearful of the future and confused about

Jesus's power over the things of life and of death.

Like, if Jesus really has power over life and death, then why is

he now talking about his own seemingly imminent death?

It could just be that God sets up this failure to reveal a

greater measure of his power and his glory through Jesus.

Whatever the reason, the sun is left unhealed at that moment by

the disciples. Father begging for his son,

disciples unable to heal the boy, this tension growing,

crowds gathering to see what will happen.

And this is what Jesus speaks into the tension.

You unbelieving and perverse generation.

Jesus replied, how long shall I stay with you and put up with

you? And then he says, bring your son

here. This is not the calming presence

and reassuring word that you'd want to hear from a mentor or

teacher. Feels like math class all over

again for me. Like the stakes are high, the

disciples get it. They want to do the thing, but

they can't. And here's Jesus with this

seeming rebuke, you unbelieving and you perverse generation.

How long do I have to put up with you?

This is what he's saying. Bring the sun here.

Jesus rebukes and it's intentionally vague, like is he

speaking to the Father? Is he speaking to the crowds?

Is he speaking to the disciples? Like who is this intended for?

I think the answer to all of those is yes, except when you

pause, when you kind of pull back a little bit.

I think we can probably imagine that the words would have stung

most to the disciples, that they would have landed the heaviest

on Jesus's followers, his closest followers and his

friends. The ones who have been with

Jesus, the ones who have been watching him, the ones who have

been learning from him, who've been sent out and beginning to

even do some of the same things Jesus has done, Now they're

faced with this rebuke. But I think it's important to

understand like Jesus isn't just being mean here.

His words are specific and they're carefully chosen.

And you still single yield. Great.

OK Still makes it rude and and kind of, you know, a little bit

harsh. It go, OK, doesn't sound any

better, but Jesus is quoting from scripture here.

He's not just pulling these words out of thin air.

He's not just like in frustration, like angry like I

can't believe that you guys couldn't do it.

I cannot believe that I sent you out and now you like this so

soon you can't do the thing. That's not what Jesus is saying.

He's quoting a phrase that's used in Deuteronomy and it's

used. If you wanna go find it, you

can. It's Deuteronomy 3220 is where

makes the most immediate connection and then again in

Isaiah 59 verse 8. And both of those passages are

Isaiah 59:8

moments where God is rebuking the people of Israel.

And it is a rebuke and it is challenging, and it would have

been met with that same level of heaviness, but it is for a very

specific purpose. So God in those passages is

rebuking Israel, the people of Israel, for forgetting who God

is and for forgetting. In forgetting who God is,

forgetting who they have been created to be, there are moments

where in Israel's life they completely abandon God, where

where they begun to sacrifice to idols, where they become greedy,

where they've become rich, they've pursued their own

passions. They've forgotten how to fear

God and how to live with God in right relationship to themselves

and to their community. And so it's a word from God that

is a word of rebuke, but specifically one that calls them

back and says, remember, remember who I am.

Remember who you've been called to be.

Remember how you've been called to be, what you have been called

to do. In Isaiah, there's this

beautiful moment, there's this beautiful turn in where in there

helpless state waiting for God to do all the things that he

says he's going to do, they turn and voice their need for a

Redeemer, for a rescuer, for the Messiah.

In Isaiah, God says remember, and they turn and they say we

will remember and we will look forward to and we will wait for

the rescuer to come. We'll wait for Jesus to come.

And so it's a phrase, This is a phrase that beckons Israel to

remember and to not forget, to remember who God is, to remember

who they've been made to be. And the disciples would have

immediately think, shaking their heads, and go, We know this

language, we memorized it. We know these stories.

They're the ones that have been read for us.

They're the ones that we've been carrying with us in our being,

waiting in attempts to not forget, trying to remember and

trying to look forward to Jesus. The disciples, you unbelieving

and perverse generation, are being called to remember.

Remember God who He is. Remember who they've been

created to be, how they've been created to be.

You see, the disciples are seen in relationship to Jesus.

The disciples, their lives, good, bad, ugly, everything in

between, are seen from the moment they're called, all the

way through the end of their stories by how they relate to

Jesus. They're heard in relationship to

Jesus. What they're able to do, what

they're not able to do, all of it.

Their lives are lived in relation to Jesus.

And the closer their lives are lived in relation to Jesus, the

more their flaws and failures become apparent and the more

they open themselves up to this kind of challenge and rebuke and

accountability. Have you ever had those moments

where like, you know, middle of the winter, maybe you're

shoveling, maybe you're outside, maybe you're like sledding or

skiing, snowboarding, skating, playing, whatever it is.

And like, your hands for me was always what?

Playing hockey. So I refused, Like I was just

this, I refused to wear proper winter gloves even though I was

playing hockey outside in Montreal, like in the middle of

the winter, how to wear my hockey gloves.

Those things stink. They don't do anything for you

at all. They don't keep your fingers

warm. But I have these moments where

you come in and, like, your fingers or your hands are so

numb that you don't know how cold they actually are until

they start to warm up, Like, until you get close to the fire,

until you get, like, run them under hot water.

And then you really realize how cold you were to begin with.

Like that probably wasn't great. This is one of those moments for

the disciples because the closer you are to Jesus, the more you

are opening yourself up to, the more you are revealed in is

revealed in you like your own faults, your own failures, the

more you need grace, the more in need of grace you are.

All of it becomes more apparent the closer you are to Jesus.

The closer I am to Jesus, the more I become aware that I need

grace. It's easy.

Like if I push Jesus off to the side and I say like, I'm gonna

forget about it. I'm not gonna spend as much time

here. Like I it's easy to keep doing

the things that I wanna do. The closer I position myself to

God, the more I become aware that I still need grace.

See, here's the challenge of passages like this.

We want to see ourselves in Jesus and we wanna turn and we

wanna face others and we don't wanna face culture.

We wanna face the world. Say you wicked and perverse

generation, we want to distance ourselves from it like that's

the danger. But you and I, we need to see

ourselves in in the failures of the disciples and and how Jesus

confronts the disciples. We need to find ourselves there,

confronted by who God really is and calls us to be.

Not in all of the successes, but in their failures.

Very crowded calls these disciples, but not yet ready

disciples, and they kind of stay that way.

It's just continual, challenging wrestling, working out of the

Christian life and faith in relation to Jesus.

Yeah, I don't know about you, but I, I hear a lot of people

talk about listen, like, hey, I, I don't, I don't wanna come to

church cause I'm not perfect. And like, if you all Christians

are perfect, then like I'm out. That counts me out.

Like I can't do that. It's like, hang out with us for

a little bit, like spend a little bit of time with us,

really get to know us. OK?

Like you'll find that that's not true.

We can so quickly become the ones who speak Jesus's words of

correction when we need to be the ones who hear them.

We need to allow our proximity to Jesus to point out the things

in our life, in our hearts and our minds that need to change,

not in others. The closer you are to Jesus, the

more that you you realize you need grace.

So we continue to realize, or reading rather, Jesus doesn't

leave this kid in this situation that he's in.

Even while the boy was coached. He says, hey senior, bring me

the sun even while so he's not even got there yet.

The demon threw him into the ground convulsions, but Jesus

man this if you underline one thing only in the entirety of

your Bibles underlying this line, this phrase, but Jesus,

but God. So here's the reality for this

kid. But Jesus rebuked the impure

spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his Father.

They were all amazed at the greatness of God.

He gave him back to his Father like I can.

You can picture that reunion. You can probably hear it.

We don't know. We're not told how old this kid

is, but I I can imagine that embrace like that's a loud hug,

right? You know those moments, just

life given back. Jesus rebukes the Spirit.

He heals the boy and he gives him his life back, fully

restored. So here's the reality.

The closer you are to Jesus, yes, the more you realize that

you still need grace and always will need grace.

But the closer you are to Jesus, the more aware you are of the

greatness of God, the more you have a front row seat to the

greatness of God, to what God is doing.

In Luke 4, you'll remember maybe this is early on in our series,

Jesus declares about himself this.

He says the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed

me to proclaim the good news to the poor.

He sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of

sight for the blind asset, the oppressed free.

And we see it all throughout the Gospel, and we see it here.

This is Jesus living into that vocation, living into that

mantle of authority and identity, who he is.

This is Jesus bringing the Kingdom, not just this like,

hey, like are you gonna get saved?

You go to heaven when you die kind of Kingdom but change your

life, give you your life back kind of Kingdom.

Jesus mountain top experience wasn't an emotional happy high

like kind of fun little moment that then they leave and descend

the mountain from. It was a conversation.

We talked about this about his death and Jesus is descent down

the mountain. Equally isn't a spiritual crash

or low like the disciples might have experienced or like we can

assume and see in it. It is the presence of God

descending the mountain to be with the people, and immediately

we see presence of God descending the mountain and the

Kingdom of God going out. People are healed.

This kid is healed you. We like to talk about religion

as being an ascent up this mountain, red eye and I reached

the top. If I reached the top of the

mountain, I had to work hard enough to get there.

Then like that's where God's presence is going to be.

And at worst, like the worst iteration that I hear is that we

like to talk sometimes as human beings as like, well, every

different religion is just a different side going up the same

mountain. Like we just have different ways

of getting there. And they go absolutely not.

Christianity has nothing to do with ascending a mountain.

Christianity has everything to do with Jesus Descending like

that was the last mountain that human beings ever had to climb

in order to encounter God. Because from there whole Kingdom

comes down, descends and explodes throughout the world.

Like this is the presence of God descending the mountain,

bringing the Kingdom in physical real give you your life back

kinds of ways. Jesus is descent, immediately

impacts those who are gathered, those who witnessed this moment,

heals the man's son. His life is given back,

relationship is restored, the Kingdom is coming.

So even though the disciples can't heal this boy, Jesus's

power has not disappeared. His power is no lesser.

There's no question in this moment who has authority.

There's no question who has power.

There's no question who is the Son of God, It says.

They were all amazed at the greatness of God.

They were all looking at what God had done.

In fact, you can almost read it that they were all like in shock

and awe and wonder and even a little bit distracted at this

one moment. What has happened?

But watch what Jesus does next. While everyone was marveling at

all that Jesus did, he said so he speaks to his disciples.

Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you.

The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.

See, the disciples are going to eventually find out that walking

with Jesus doesn't just mean walking on the mountain tops, it

means walking with him all the way to his death.

Jesus, though he remains laser focused on the mission to bring

the Kingdom, not just to this one kid, not just to this one

crowd, but to the world. He is laser focused to bring the

Kingdom of heaven on earth as it is in heaven to its fullness.

And that at this point in the Gospel of Luke for us means a

turn and kind of the slow journey from here to Jerusalem

and then to the cross where he will die.

It means facing his death. And so again, in this moment

where everybody is kind of distracted over here, he calls

the disciples in close and says, I don't want you to forget.

Listen carefully. This phrase here, listen

carefully to what I'm about to tell you, is essentially a slang

for. You're gonna guess it.

Remember, don't forget these words.

Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you.

The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.

Jesus wants his disciples to remember.

He wants his disciples to remember Peter declaring you are

the Christ, you are God's Messiah.

He wants his disciples remembering the mountaintop

transfiguration and his face and clothing shining as bright as

lightning and Moses and Elijah and a conversation.

But he wants them to also remember the voice from heaven.

This is my son. Pay attention.

Listen to him. He wants them to remember the

healing, to remember the deliverance, and to remember it

all the way up to his own death, and to understand in that moment

that even in death the glory and the power of Jesus is still

fully on display and that the mission of God is being taken to

its fulfillment. He wants his disciples to

remember, and I think He wants you to remember and for me to

remember who He is and who you've been called to be.

And that's the beauty of communion.

That is the gift of this sacrament.

It is a gift to God's people that invites us to remember

these gifts, gifts of God for the people of God.

And we eat and we drink and we remember inside of like the core

of our being who we've been created to be.

God's glory, God's power on full display.

We're invited to remember that Jesus's death isn't the end of

the story, that with his death comes his resurrection and

resurrection life. Life to its fullest measure.

So that's your invitation today as we now turn to continue

worshipping by celebrating this table and this meal.

Remember, let me pray. I got to thank you again for

your goodness and your grace. Thank you for your presence with

us, and thank you for these gifts which remind us to

remember. Remember your love, to remember

your presence with us, to remember your glory, your power,

the ways in which you've healed us, the ways in which you

continue to heal us. So God, I pray that you would do

that today again. Remind us who we are and remind

us who's we are, that we are yours.

We got through these gifts, through this bread, through this

juice and wine. Would we taste and see that you

are good? We pray these things in the

strong name of Jesus, Amen.