The Kingdom Way: Authority in a Sacred Space with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name is Clayton.

I'm the pastor at MetaCurch, and I hope that today's message is inspiring and enlightening and really builds you up wherever you're at in life.

I want to welcome you in.

I'm so glad that you joined us.

We're in new service times, we're in a new service structure.

I'm very excited about it.

If you're new with us, my name's Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here.

And uh let me just ask you: are you ready for the word?

Are you ready to get in the word?

Amen.

Um, you know, we're making more space in our service, which is a very strategic way of saying our services are longer.

But it sounds better when you say we're making more space.

Sounds better than you gotta sit in a longer service.

Uh I was not nervous to make this change though, because over the year 2025 I became convinced that Metachurch is a movement that is serious about the word.

And when you look at every great revival that has broken out all over the world at different times throughout history, one of the key indicators that revival is coming is movements of people who take the word seriously, who are willing to take 15, 20 more minutes of a Sunday rhythm and submit it to getting under the Word of God and getting under instruction and allowing the Holy Spirit to move and to change their lives.

And so I'm very excited because uh we just decided we're not rushing anymore in our services.

We're listening, we're following the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and we're moving forward, and we're trusting that power will break out as we make space for the Holy Spirit to move.

Now, if you are new with us, uh if this is your first week, what you probably do not know is that we are going line by line through the Gospel of Luke.

Uh, we've broken this down into seven series, and last year we went through the first of these seven series, and we called that the Chosen King.

This was the birth of Jesus, and it was the preparation of Jesus to start his ministry.

I don't know if I ever shared this with y'all, but I outlined series before I ever preached them.

I outlined them and then I start studying through the outline.

When I first outlined the chosen king, I believed it would be nine weeks long.

That was my outline.

A nine-week outline.

Twenty-six weeks later, we finally finished out that series, and we're just gonna go as slow as the Holy Spirit wants us to go.

We were walking through that.

Now, I cannot catch you up on 26 weeks of content.

If you missed it and you want to get caught up, you can go to YouTube and you've got hours of content that you can listen to and get all the way caught up.

There is one thing from the Chosen King that I need you to get so we can move into our new series.

And everything I need you to get really is found and just kind of tied together in the announcement when an angel named Gabriel came with a message directly from heaven and met with a young woman named Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And I want you to pay very careful attention to this prophetic declaration over who Jesus would be.

Listen to what Gabriel said.

He says to Mary, Now listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.

Now, who will this Jesus be?

He will be great and be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, King David.

And this Jesus will reign over the house of Jacob, that means Israel, forever.

And listen, his kingdom will have no end.

Now, this is hard because even if you're not a believer, and even if you did not grow up in church, you know enough of the story of Jesus to at least kind of know what Christians do believe about him, that he didn't just come to sit on an earthly throne, that Christians believe he's the king of all kings, that he's the king of the universe, that he's the savior of the world, and in fact that Jesus was God in human flesh, even if you didn't grow up in church, as a Westerner and American, you probably know that Christians believe that about Jesus.

And so this is a difficult, counterfactual, but imagine you knew nothing about Jesus.

And I mean nothing.

And imagine you knew nothing about the Bible, and imagine you knew nothing about Christianity, and nothing about the history of the church.

And all you knew was that an angel came to a woman, and these are the words he said to her.

That's all you knew.

I want you to notice Gabriel did not talk about Jesus' teaching, his preaching, his healing, his miracles.

He did not even talk about the cross or the grave.

If you knew nothing except these verses, and I asked you, tell me about this Jesus guy, the one conclusion you would have to come to is I don't know much, but it sounds like he's gonna be the king.

And here's why we have to know this, and it really gets to the heart of everything we did in 26 weeks, is because as modern Christians and as Western Christians, and maybe specifically as American Christians, there are a lot of aspects of Jesus that we really like.

We like Jesus as Savior, Jesus who came and who snatched us out of hell itself and gave us an eternal life in perfection with God.

Who wouldn't like that?

We like Jesus the philosopher.

We take his sayings and our grandmas stitch them into pillows and put them around the house, right?

Jesus the philosopher, we like that.

We like Jesus as our friend.

Most of you know I grew up, my dad was in the army, we moved all the time.

I went to a lot of churches growing up.

There was a church in Colleen, Texas, and every single Sunday, when service ended, we would all hold hands across the entire sanctuary, is what we called it, and we would sing a hymn called What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

Some of you know that hymn, and some of you are blessed.

That hymn haunts me.

And Jesus is your friend.

And just that reality should really blow our minds.

It's true, it's powerful, it's amazing.

What I'm getting at is we like a lot of aspects of Jesus, but in the modern Western American church context, we don't talk a lot about Jesus as king.

Jesus as king all of a sudden gets uncomfortable because when there is a king, they hold authority over you.

You must bow to a king.

You must reverence a king, you must follow the prescriptions of a king.

I don't know if you know our history, but as Americans, we don't love kings.

About 250 years ago, we had a king over in England.

You might have heard we did something about it.

We don't love kings, and that's a problem for us.

Because when heaven sends a message to the mother of Jesus, the message is clear.

You're having a son, and that son is king.

And we have to know that, and we spent 26 weeks trying to understand that.

And once you realize that Jesus is in fact the king, now in this new series, which will go on for who knows how long, in this new series, we see Jesus begin his ministry, speaking, teaching, living out the example of his life, healing, miracles, traveling, raising up disciples, challenging authority.

What we're gonna see in this new series is the kingdom way.

The kingdom way, literally the way that the kingdom of Jesus operates.

And this is powerful because we know, we've already seen it, Jesus' kingdom is an upside-down kingdom.

The way to exaltation is humility.

This is the life of Jesus lived out and expressed at the highest level by Jesus, God Himself coming to earth, creator, allowing his creation to nail him to a cross.

We're gonna see the kingdom way, and it starts today in Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

Now, there's a concept that you guys are gonna need to understand in order to understand today's text.

And that's the concept of a sacred space.

A sacred space.

Now, my guess is you understand this intuitively because there are spaces and places in your own life that have felt somewhat sacred to you.

Maybe for you, this was grandma or grandpa's house.

Maybe there's a specific place.

There's a port swing on the front porch where there were generations of wisdom downloaded to you by grandma or grandpa.

That is a sacred space to you.

You can close your eyes, you can see it, and more than see it, you can feel it.

You can remember being 11 years old, on that swing, grandma's arm around you, maybe grandma's not here anymore, maybe she's gone on to eternity.

You can feel it.

A tear could come to your eye right now.

We even create kind of sacred spaces.

For some of you, to get the stress of life and the pressures of life, your sacred space is the gym, right?

You put on your sound isolating headphones, you get juiced up with your creatine, you know, and you hit the gym and move some weight around, and that's a sacred space to you.

That's where you go, that's where you uh men, we had this thing, you know, we created called the man cave.

Some of you have a man cave.

You used to have a garage, now you have a man cave, and it is treated as sacred.

Dad's in the man cave, you don't go in the garage.

That's man cave time now, right?

Everything has to be equal.

It's 2026.

So now, ladies, y'all have a she shed, right?

We have a man cave, you have a she shed.

And it's like, mom poured a glass of wine and went to the she shed, right?

So mom's off duty right now.

She's in her sacred place.

Uh for me growing up, it was an empty basketball court with hardwood floors.

In this moment, right now, I can smell it, I can hear the bounce of the ball reverberating across the gym.

It was like a sacred space to me.

Now I had an interesting moment because one of those in my history was the church where my grandfather was a preacher.

My grandfather was my hero, he was a very fiery preacher, uh, he was awesome.

He had uh he was missing some fingers, and then he had a crooked pointer finger like this, like the top digit was kind of pointing down, and he would, oh, you know, he would point at you, and then the devil would just run out of your body when that crooked finger pointed at you.

And uh when I came to know the Lord, my grandfather baptized me in the church where he pastored in Awadulce, Texas, uh, deep South Texas.

I got baptized at Awadulce Baptist, and uh to be in that church building, I can still smell it right now.

I can smell it.

It smells like mothballs, if you're wondering.

That's what it smells like, the whole place.

And I got baptized there by my grandfather, uh, who went on to be with Jesus a very long time ago.

Now, in my 20s, I went to a funeral back in Awadulce, and I didn't really know this.

I knew they had built a new sanctuary, a new church building.

What I did not know until I turned that corner is they had torn the old one down.

And I was shocked how it hit me that I would never again get to walk into that building where I watched my grandfather preach so many sermons.

I would never get to go and peek in that baptismal where my grandfather helped usher me in to my walk with the Lord.

It hit me, it hit me very hard.

And here's the reality: as soon as something becomes a sacred space, it now has the capacity to be desecrated.

As soon as something is sacred, it has the capacity to be desecrated.

And so if you walk into your man cave and your wife has redecorated and painted the walls, fuchsia, desecration, okay?

If you walk into your she shed and your husband's smoking a cigar in the middle of it, it is now a desecrated space, right?

Like as soon as you hold it as sacred, anything can go wrong and it feels like a desecration.

Now here's what's real none of these spaces I've talked about, none of these examples are actual sacred spaces.

They feel that way, and it's how we describe them.

Sacred spaces are spaces inhabited by God.

Amen?

Sacred spaces, an actual sacred space is a space inhabited by God.

And you need to know that God created sacred spaces from the beginning of time out of his love, and every time God creates a sacred space, it is in order to dwell with his people.

This is a concept I need you to understand.

God created the world.

In this world, he created a garden that we call Eden.

Sacred spaces are where God inhabits, and God creates sacred space to dwell with his people.

When the Israelites were wandering the wilderness, God told them to construct an elaborate tent called the tabernacle.

The glory of God filled it.

It's a sacred space because God inhabits the tabernacle, and God inhabits the tabernacle.

Why?

To dwell with his people.

When they take the land of Israel, they create a temple.

Inside the temple is the Holy of Holies.

The first temple is built, the glory of God surrounds and fills the temple.

It is now a sacred space because it is inhabited by God, and God inhabits sacred spaces.

Why?

To dwell with his people.

Here's something else you need to know.

The sinful heart of man will always find a way to desecrate sacred spaces.

In the garden we call Eden, all it took was the right tree at the right time with the right temptation, and we desecrated the sacred space that God intended for us to dwell with Him.

And the reality is that when we were closed off to the garden, every single one of us now lived outside of the sacred space.

And it's it's a it's a silly analogy, but I think it holds.

Because that moment that I drove back in to this little town called Awadulse, and and my grandfather's church building was now just rubble on the ground, and I realized I would never be able to go back in.

And it actually, as a 20-year-old man, broke my heart.

That is what every single human being carries with us because we are outside of the garden where we were created to dwell in the presence of God, and all of us have this feeling like we do not know how to get back.

And God continues to pursue us, and we continue to rebel.

We talked a lot about this last year, but God gives his people Israel and gives them the temple, and God dwells in the temple.

The first temple is glory surrounds it, and he fills it because God desires to dwell with his people.

But never underestimate the sinful heart of man.

They rebel, they go after the other gods of other nations, they go after idolatry, they break his commands, they break his laws, and eventually they come under the consequence of life without God, and they are dispersed throughout the known world.

Enemies come in and tear the temple down to its foundation.

We also learned that eventually the Israelites got to go back home, they built a second temple.

But did you know that when the second temple was completed, the glory of God never fell upon it, the Spirit of God never indwelt it.

And so the people still lived as if the temple is a sacred space.

But sacred spaces aren't sacred because we call them that, they are only sacred when they are inhabited by the presence of God.

We have to understand that to understand today's text.

Now, Luke is very intentional.

We have seen this through three and a half chapters.

Luke is not playing games.

He tells us in the first four verses of his gospel why he has written this.

He has written this so his friend, and now all of us can be certain of what Jesus has accomplished.

And so he's writing in very specific order.

He's not always writing in chronological order.

He is writing in an order to help us understand what Jesus has done.

Because of this, we're about to see the very first miracle that Luke reports on.

It is not Jesus' first miracle.

We know Jesus' first miracle, we learn it in John's gospel.

It is Jesus turning water into wine.

It's his very first miracle.

It's kind of his coming out party.

He doesn't even want to do it.

His mom makes him, right?

Anybody been there?

Don't want to do it, but your mom makes you.

It's a great miracle.

And as the preacher here, it's a really easy first miracle to preach on, right?

It's like no one really likes drinking water, and most people like drinking wine.

It's a fun miracle.

But not in Luke's gospel.

The first miracle is not feeding a bunch of people, opening the eyes of the blind, healing someone, calming down a storm.

The first miracle is the exorcism of a demon.

Why?

Luke is writing on purpose.

So here's our question: Why is this the first miracle Luke reports on?

We'll try to answer that today.

We're in Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

We're gonna start in verse 31.

It says, Then Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath.

Now, Capernaum is gonna be important in the life of Jesus.

It becomes his base camp.

We know Jesus travels, he's an itinerant rabbi, he goes town to town teaching, preaching, doing miracles, and casting out demons.

But Capernaum is home base.

More specifically, we will see next week that where he actually camps out is in the house of Peter, who is his disciple.

We'll see the call of the disciples in Luke chapter 5.

Luke 5 · chapter mention

This is his home base.

We also know Jesus has a rhythm.

He goes town to town, and on the Sabbath, he is welcomed into the synagogue, and in the synagogue, he teaches and preaches.

Jesus is already seen as a rabbi.

He already has people following him, hanging on his every word, learning from him.

If you are a rabbi, you're welcome in the synagogue, you get to get up, you get to preach, you get to teach.

And everywhere Jesus goes, when he gets up in the synagogue and preaches, there is the same exact response.

We see it in verse 32.

They were astonished, amazed, dumbfounded, mind-blown, beside themselves.

They were astonished at his teaching because his message had authority.

He's a rabbi, but not like any rabbi we've heard before.

He's a teacher, but not like any teacher we've ever heard before.

Luke loves this word authority.

We're gonna see it a lot of times in his gospel.

Every time he uses this word, it has supernatural connotation.

The way Jesus teaches, the way he preaches, the way he moves, no one has ever seen it before.

And here's the truth: Israel is far from God while he is in this synagogue preaching.

They have rebelled, they have turned their back on God, they do not understand the heart of God, they are living for fake religion and fake purity, they are still messing around with idolatry, they have not heard from God now for 400 years, and the Spirit of God does not indwell the temple.

To understand our setting, we have to understand what a synagogue was.

The temple in ancient Israel was a sacred place, it's where the presence of God lived.

These synagogues were local, sacred extensions of the temple.

Israel was large, not everyone could go to the temple every single Sabbath, and so you went to your synagogue.

The synagogue had purity rules.

You had to act right, you had to dress right, you did not speak out of turn in the synagogue.

You had to follow the actual Levitical laws.

If you were ritualistically impure, if you were unclean, if you were sick, if you were bleeding, you could not go in to the synagogue because it was pure and undefiled.

I'm saying all that to say the synagogue was seen as a sacred space.

As Jesus walks in to what everyone believes is a sacred space, here's what happens.

The beginning of verse 33 says, In the synagogue, there was a man with an unclean demonic spirit.

Let me just tell you how I feel preaching this.

I feel like I'm preaching this to Westerners who are living in the digital age, post-Enlightenment.

We all believe in science.

We cling to it.

It's how we learn, it's how we see the world.

And so for most modern post-Enlightenment Westerners, you start talking about demons and you lose people.

There are a lot of really prominent voices in the world, even today, who handle the scriptures.

They don't actually call themselves Christians, and when they get to moments like this, they psychologize it.

Well, what they meant by a demon was probably a psychological disorder, and that's why we have to get our minds right, and that's why we have to get this.

Let me make something clear.

This is not a psychology textbook.

This is someone reporting on history, and Luke tells us that a demon manifested in the synagogue in Capernaum specifically because a demon manifested in the synagogue in Capernaum.

I am not here to apologize for what scripture has to report to us.

And until we begin to live with an acknowledgement in both the natural world, which we're all Very comfortable with, but also the supernatural world, then we are only seeing half of reality.

You don't know how the world works, you don't know how your life works, and you do not know how to move and navigate according to how God has asked you to if you are not aware of supernatural reality.

Yes, there is a veil between us and the supernatural, however, our behaviors affect the supernatural, and you better believe the supernatural affects our behaviors.

And so a lot of people have problems with this.

And you might as well.

And I understand how the world sees people who take the Bible seriously.

They think that it is antiquated, that it is illogical, and that it is immature.

And what I want to suggest to you is that living completely in denial of supernatural reality is in fact the most immature way to organize your life.

Live long enough and pay enough attention, and you will not be able to deny that there are, in fact, good and evil forces that are at work in the world and are at work in your life, and they will touch your life.

Let me tell you how this works because if there is no demons, if there is no God, there is no objective good, there is no objective evil.

There is no objective right, there is no objective wrong.

And just so you know if you are agnostic or atheist, that is what your leading philosophers believe.

An honest atheist has to admit there is no objective morality, there is no objective good, there is no objective evil, there is no objective right, there's no objective wrong.

It is all just a matter of preference and opinion.

You cannot ground good and evil in this world.

They need transcendent grounding.

Now, let me tell you something I'm observed.

A hardcore atheist will look you in the face and promise you there is no objective right and no objective wrong until you punch them in the face.

All of a sudden, I did something objectively wrong.

You cannot live in reality and not experience actual good, actual evil.

And if there is no God and there is no devil and there are no angels and there are no demons, you cannot ground these things.

As we grow in our spiritual maturity, we grow in our spiritual awareness.

One of the things that people ask is, like, well, we don't see demons, you know?

In the Bible, there's all these demons popping out, and demons, this, and demons.

There's a guy with demons, and he's super, he's got like the Hulk strength, and he's doing all this stuff.

We don't see any of that.

Let me remind you something I've reminded you a few times.

Scripture even testifies that the devil is the most cunning and crafting of all supernatural beings.

And so you'll learn this as you continue to mature.

Whether it is in your personal life, in your career, whether it is in your fitness and your athletic endeavors, you can do one of two things.

You can work hard or you can work smart.

Some of you work three times as hard as you need to at your job because you will not just manage your time well.

You work smart, things get a lot easier.

I promise you, the devil always works smart.

If you go to undeveloped parts of the world, even today, if you go to third world countries where everyone lives with a supernatural awareness, you will see supernatural activity that will leave you never the same again.

In my 20s, I spent significant time in Haiti.

In Haiti, still to this day, voodoo is the dominant religion.

There are witch doctors in every town, and to us Westerners, that sounds like a cartoon.

That sounds funny.

Go to Haiti.

It's not funny.

So why don't we see it?

We don't see it because the devil always works smart instead of hard.

We don't need demons manifesting here in America everywhere that we turn and everywhere that we look, because our digital interfaces do all the work for the devil.

Our wealth does all the work for the devil.

Our affluence does all the work for the devil, our convenience does all the work for the devil.

The devil is a pragmatist.

All he cares about are accomplishing his ends, and his ends are distracting you and keeping you from the Lord.

That's it.

You know why we don't see demons manifesting on every corner here in the West where we are modernized and digital?

Because if demons started manifesting on every corner in America, we would not have seats in our services because people would finally have to contend that the crazy Christians who have been seeing the world supernaturally all along were right about something.

Demons would drive people into the arms of Jesus here in America.

The greatest lie the devil ever told in the West is convincing people he does not exist.

And so when I read to you about a demon in the synagogue in Capernaum, you're welcome to roll your eyes.

I mean, that's definitely you're right.

You're welcome to not come back next week.

You're welcome to think everyone at Medichurch is crazy.

But there are supernatural forces affecting your life.

And there is a reason that Luke put this as the very first miracle of Jesus.

Number one, because he is showing us that Jesus stepping onto the scene is a cosmic supernatural collision.

A cosmic supernatural collision.

That the authorities of this world, the devil and his demons, who have run roughshod over our cultures, that they were having their way, and all of a sudden, the chosen king, God in human flesh, stepped onto the scene and started speaking the actual truth, and the demons didn't know what to do.

You gotta understand, we're talking about sacred spaces.

They're in the synagogue, which is a sacred branch of the temple where everyone thinks the Spirit of God lives.

This is a demon showing up where demons do not belong.

The demon didn't show up in the prostitution house, it didn't show up in a seedy back alley, it didn't show up in a seance in a back room somewhere, it showed up in the synagogue.

In the time of the first temple, when the glory of God filled that temple, a demon could not have entered a synagogue in Israel in that time.

You need to know this: that a believer in Jesus, sealed by the Holy Spirit, cannot be possessed by a demon.

A demon cannot take up residence where the Spirit of God is.

You cannot be demon-possessed.

I need you to hear this.

You can be demonically oppressed.

Possession is inside out, oppression is outside in.

And so what does Jesus do?

Let's read about it in 33 and 34.

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.

Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy One of God.

Notice Jesus does not speak to the demon first, the demon first speaks to Jesus.

At this time, while there are demonic forces plaguing the world and plaguing Israel, there were self-ascribed exorcists in Israel and in the broader ancient Near East.

And here is how exorcists would deal with demons.

They would deal with demons with magic and authority.

Magic and authority.

And so you can read this in writings in Israel, you can read this in writings in ancient Greece, you can read this in writings in ancient Babylon, that there would be an authority struggle between the exorcist and their magic and the demon and its power.

And one of the things you read about in Babylon and Greece and Israel, all of them, is that a way to assert authority is by naming.

It means you're Jesus from nowhere.

You're Jesus a nobody.

I know who you are.

Listen, carefully, we have to slow down in scripture.

A holy one of God.

Is that who Jesus is?

Or is he the holy God in human flesh?

You need to know this.

Demons are not popping out, manifesting exorcist style, climbing up walls, heads, turning around on every corner here in America.

But the supernatural forces that are weighing on your life to control you, they will name you.

And some of you wake up every day and you claim a name that God did not give you.

You say your name, but you put an of.

I am Clayton of insecurity.

I am Clayton of anxiety.

You put your name in there.

I am of the divorce, of the broken home, of the college dropout, of the failure, of the unloved.

We wake up and we embrace identities that have been named, not from God, but the enemies of God.

And here's what they do: they put a little bit of truth and a little bit of lie.

Enough truth that you'll swallow it, enough lie that they will keep you off course from the light that God has given you to live.

They will name you.

Names carry meaning.

This is why almost every significant figure in Scripture, God gives a new name.

Did you know Revelation tells us that someday we will stand before Jesus and those who know him, he will give you a new name.

You know what Clayton actually means?

You know, you can look at like the meaning of names or whatever.

This is interesting.

Clay, like mud, like dirt.

Clayton means of the earth.

What's my name?

You know, that's how I lived for most of my life.

Living for the earth, for the world, for the flesh.

I don't know what my new name will be, but I bet the meaning is something like for the kingdom, for the gospel, for the proclamation, for the church, for building up the saints.

I believe God has a new name for me.

I'm not of the earth anymore.

I'm not for this world anymore.

I reject the names that the devil has tried to place on me.

Look at what the demon says.

Leave us alone.

What do you have to do with us?

I know believers here across our venues, I know that you're not looking at areas of your life and going, Jesus, what do you got to do with this?

But practically, are we saying it with how we live?

It's like, man, I pray and I really like, and you know, I got in a life team and I'm doing this, and then Jesus tries to touch your money, and it's like, Jesus, what do you got to do with this?

He tries to speak to you about your health and how you're not taking care of the temple of God, and you're like, mind your business, bro.

This is what you got to do with this.

I'm just telling you that Luke is showing us the very first miracle of Jesus, and it's instructive for us.

Because we will not live blind to the supernatural reality that we exist in.

That the forces of hell have one goal, and that goal is to keep you from Jesus.

And if you're already a believer in Jesus, it is to distract you from your purpose.

Now, here's what's very interesting: the demons are used to Josh Mo coming in and trying to exorcise them and having this power struggle.

And the exorcist would use magic.

Now that sounds funny to you, like I'm about to pull a rabbit out of a hat or something.

But all I'm saying is that when we are trying to conjure power from within ourselves, we're trying to do magic.

And the problem is, even in the church today, we have a lot of people who the way we approach our supernatural battle that we are in is we try to do it by ourselves.

And we try to go, man, if I say these words in this order, and if I wear this clothes, and if I have long enough tassels hanging, if I have my head covered, if I stand in this position, and if I if I point this way, and if I laugh this way, there are churches you can watch today, there are ministry schools you can go to today who will teach you how to deal with the supernatural realm.

And I'm here to tell you they're just trying to teach you magic.

I thought long and hard about this last sermon.

I just don't care anymore.

Uh, you can watch the church Bethel and you can go to their school of supernatural ministry.

Bethel, I got you, I see what you're doing.

They're just teaching magic.

They will use tarot cards for supernatural reasons.

They'll tell you to lay on the graves of famous Christians and try to soak out their energy.

It's magic.

Here's what we're doing.

So stupid.

We are using pagan practices to try and defeat pagan forces.

Saging your house because you had a bad month.

You think that God holds your future, but you're still going to actually put credence into your zodiac.

It's quiet in here, my gosh.

You really believe that crystal is doing something.

You actually believe it.

You hold it while you read the Bible, like you're gonna get some extra juice out of it.

You light candles when you pray.

I like candles, but you're not lighting them for ambiance.

It's superstitious, it's magic, it's nonsense.

And so all these exorcists doing all this struggle, the demons jump ahead, they think they're gonna get one on Jesus.

I know who you are.

Let me name you, let me name you real quick.

If I name you, I claim authority, I'm gonna name you, and I got this synagogue now.

Let me show you.

35.

But Jesus rebuked him and said, Be silent and come out of him.

And throwing him down before them, the demon came out of him without hurting him at all.

I don't know if you've ever seen someone under demonic influence, but one of the things that happens often is they will hurt themselves.

They will scratch, they will claw, they will hit, they'll hit themselves, hit themselves on things.

The authority that Jesus has, he doesn't power struggle, he doesn't name, he doesn't do magic, he just rebukes.

A rebuke requires authority.

We'll talk about that next week.

A rebuke requires authority, and you need to know this.

There is no power struggle with Jesus.

Amen?

There is no power struggle.

He has all of the authority and he has perfect authority, and watch what happens.

This is why we gotta slow down in the text.

The demon leaves and does not even take a parting shot.

The demon's like, all right, I'm out of here.

And I'm gonna set this guy down real soft.

Runs for his life.

The way you win your supernatural battles is not by magic, it's not by having the exact right words, wearing the right clothes, standing in the right corner, putting your feet, stand on one foot, head the other foot, stick your tongue out.

Like the way you win spiritual battles is you get behind Jesus.

The way you defeat the devil is you get behind Jesus.

Because when Jesus comes, demons must flee.

At the name of Jesus, demons must flee.

Strongholds fall not by your power, and certainly not by your authority, and not by your magic.

Strongholds fall at the name and the presence of Jesus.

Why is this Luke's first miracle?

Because what happens in that synagogue is a microcosm of his entire ministry.

Jesus came to reclaim sacred spaces.

Jesus came to reclaim sacred spaces.

What he does in the synagogue by the end of his time on earth, he will do in the temple, he cleanses it.

But the plan of God was bigger.

Let me show you the reaction.

We'll finish our text.

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, listen, and news about him began to go out to every place in the vicinity.

We'll come back to that in two weeks.

What is a sacred place?

A sacred place is anywhere God inhabits.

And why does God inhabit sacred spaces?

You should know this.

To dwell with his people.

And you need to know this.

If you are a believer, you need to understand the reality of what has happened to you.

If you are not a believer, you need to understand the love God has for you.

He is so desperate to dwell with you that he would not settle for having a location in a building, in a city, in a state.

God's plan was bigger.

It was so big that God himself came to earth, put on flesh, lived a perfect life, died in my place and your place.

He walked out of his own grave three days later and ascended back to heaven to push forward a movement and to send the Spirit of God not to live in a tent and not to live in a temple, but to live in the life of every single believer.

Here's what the apostle Paul says to the Corinthians.

He says, Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is not setting up sacred places, he is indwelling a sacred people.

That's not just true for you as an individual, it is also true for the body of Christ.

I'm telling you, in 2026, it is my job to help you understand that when the body comes together like we are together right now, it is in fact supernatural in its nature.

Look what he says to the Ephesians.

He says, In him, you, that's a plural you, so I inserted, this is now the Clayton Tyner version, in him, y'all are also being built together, the body of Christ.

Why?

For God's dwelling in the spirit.

God desires to dwell with his people.

And what this means for you, if you are not a believer, is you are in a supernatural battle and you have no protection.

What this means for us all is we have been kicked out of the garden, out of the sacred space where we get to dwell in the presence of God.

And you need to know that Jesus came and he made a way back.

I have to live with the reality that I will never again walk into Awadulce Baptist Church and see the pulpit that my grandfather stood behind and preached fire on people.

I will never get to walk through that baptismal and see where my journey started.

But I need you to know we will see the garden again.

Jesus will come back.

He will reign forever, and his reign will usher in a new heavens and a new earth.

You know what Jesus called it?

He called it paradise.

You know what paradise means in the Greek?

It means the garden.

And so what do we do about this?

If you're not a believer, it's time.

Life is short.

You are not promised tomorrow.

Jesus has come for you, he's proven his love to you, he has invited you in to an eternal relationship with your Heavenly Father.

He is willing and ready to forgive every one of your sins that you ever have and ever will commit to clothe you in his righteousness.

What does it mean for us who are already believers?

It means that we must allow Jesus to cleanse every sacred space.

Everywhere you invite Jesus in, demons must flee, which is why you must invite him in.

You're a believer, he needs into your mind, he needs into your habits, he needs into your addictions, he needs into your marriage, he needs into your parenting, he needs into your career.

Yes, he needs into your money, he needs into your health, he needs into every single nook and cranny of your life because he will sanctify and make sacred the spaces of your life.

C.S.

Lewis has a good thing to say about most things.

He wrote this there are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.

One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

He's talking about two sides of a spectrum.

One of them you are spiritually unaware.

If you are spiritually unaware, you are spiritually vulnerable.

There is another extreme though.

And that is where you become hyper-aware.

You start looking for the devil and his demons behind every word, every person, every situation, every problem, every instance, every feeling.

What happens with hyper-awareness is we begin to give the power uh the devil more power than is due him.

So what's the actual answer?

How do we not live unaware, but how do we not live hyper-aware?

How do we find a center?

And the answer is you don't actually fix your attention on the devil and his demons, you fix your focus on Jesus.

Jesus is who we follow, we are his disciples.

In the ancient world, the word disciple had a picture associated with it.

And the picture to be a disciple is that you walk so close to your rabbi that you proudly wear his dirt on your sandals, in my case, Jordan 4s.

You just walk so close, it's like you just proudly, it's like, you know why these are dirty?

Because I'm walking so close to Jesus, everything he moves through, he kicks a little bit back onto me.

And if you begin to follow Jesus and allow him into every part of your life, you will grow an appropriate spiritual awareness because Jesus has perfect spiritual awareness.

And more than that, Jesus will fight your battles for you.

It is not by your authority, it is certainly not by your magic.

We claim victory.

There was no contest.

Luke's showing us all of this in these few verses.

There's no contest.

The demon stood no chance.

The demon can sit and go back and forth with you, but not with your Savior.

So cease striving.

Get behind Jesus.

He will fight your battles before you fix your focus on Jesus.

We're learning the kingdom way.

And the way of the kingdom is the way of the king.

Fix your focus on him.

And he will show you where to go.

Let's pray.

As we close, right where you're at, if you bow your head and close your eyes, I just want to spend a second in reflection for believers.

What are the areas in your life where you have kept Jesus out?

Maybe you just think it's so trivial, why would he want in?

That's not the question.

The question is, do you want Jesus to reclaim sacred space?

If the answer is yes, let him in everywhere.

And I want to talk to anyone who is not a believer in Jesus, which means there has never been a point, a moment in your life where you have consciously made the decision to put your faith in Jesus, convinced and convicted that Jesus is who he claimed to be and that he has done what he claims to have done.

If that is you, my guess, because you are in the supernatural body of Christ, the Spirit of God is pressing in on you, and it's because God loves you and He desires to dwell with you.

And for you, today is the day of salvation, and I'm asking you to surrender to that.

If that's you with everyone's eyes closed, I want to ask you for this moment of courage to acknowledge your faith in Jesus today by simply raising your hand.

This is a symbolic gesture.

Praise God.

Amen.

As hands go up, I want you guys to know I can say with confidence out of the word that God sees and accepts your faith.

All of your sins have been forgiven in this moment, and you have been restored to relationship with your Heavenly Father.

An eternal relationship that no one can take away from you.

And so what I want to do is very simply help you acknowledge the decision you've made through a prayer.

I'm going to ask everyone who raised hands across our venues to pray this with me.

I'm going to ask all believers across our venues to pray out loud as well.

Let's pray like this.

Jesus, today I choose to put my faith in you.

I believe you are God that you died for my sins and rose from the grave.

I thank you for loving me.

And for giving my sins.

So glad you joined us for today's message.

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