Jesus has no rival | Sunday Sermon

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

And Lord, there's none of us that are sufficient, Lord, to be the ones that get that share from your word.

And so, Lord, we pray for the presence of your spirit today.

Holy Spirit, we pray that you would illuminate our eyes and our hearts and our minds.

That you would help me, Lord, to be faithful to your word this morning.

I pray that you would speak this morning through your word to all of us, Lord, and that we would thereby grow and produce fruit for you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Okay, well, we have been in the story of Acts, and you know that, because you've been here every single week and have been so faithful.

But except for Debbie, she hasn't been here every week.

She's skipped a couple weeks.

So everybody say shame.

No, I'm just kidding.

We're just kidding.

Sheesh.

Debbie can take one for sure.

For sure.

I would have been offended, but yeah, for sure.

Payback.

I do know what they say about that.

So last week we saw Paul in the city of Corinth, and he had gone to the city of Corinth, and he had gone in a time when he was tired.

He was exhausted.

He had been alone for a long time.

And so he spent some time in the city of Corinth.

And Corinth was a city that was very, you know, um uh sin adjacent, okay?

So they were very familiar with all the different ways which one could offend the Lord.

And so he went into that city with a very particular message, okay?

Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So I determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.

He had spent a year and a half there, and when he left, he sailed back to the area of Judea and Syria.

He needed to go and just recharge at home base for a moment, I think, you know.

And so on the way back, he stopped quickly at Ephesus.

He dropped off some friends he had made in Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla, and they stayed there.

He went into the synagogue, and the Jews there had asked him to please stay and can continue to share with them about the Messiah.

But he said, it says he declined and he went back.

He said, I'll come back if the Lord is willing.

He went back and he spent some time at his home church.

Well, at this point, Paul has left once again.

And he's traveled through across the inland route, through the cities and all the places where they had planted churches.

And so he's strengthening the churches in Syria and in Phrygia and through Galatia, back to the churches where he and Barnabas had planted.

And then he makes his way across Asia Minor once again, and he comes to the city of Ephesus.

And it says in verse 1, and it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.

And in verse 8 it says he entered the synagogue, and for three months he spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannis.

And this continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Now Ephesus was its own unique animal.

He gets to Ephesus, and Ephesus was a very prominent, prosperous city in the Roman Empire.

They were right on the coast of the Aegean Sea.

And so all the import, all the exports that needed to leave the Asia Minor area, a lot of them would go through the port at Ephesus.

And so a lot of wealth, a lot of money, a lot of traffic, a lot of people passing through Ephesus.

But Ephesus was also known for the temple that they had there, the temple to Artemis, or some call her Diana.

Okay, and so this was a massive temple.

The pillars were 60 feet high.

It was larger than the Parthenon in Athens.

And people would come from all over the Roman Empire to worship Artemis in this city.

Okay, the other things that Ephesus was very well known for were different kinds of pagan worship.

In this area of Asia Minor, there were what's called mystery cults, basically little religious groups where you had to gain entrance in order to get a hold of this secret knowledge that they said that you could have.

Now, you would get this secret knowledge through communing or connecting to what they called aeons, or they called them daimonis, okay, which is where we get the word demons.

Okay, but they thought they were benevolent spirit beings that you would commune with them and they would give you secret knowledge in exchange.

They practiced many different forms of magic, of incantations.

Okay, they had these things called the uh Ephesian letters, and what they were is they were basically spells that were written on pieces of paper, and you could fold them up and you could wear them in bracelets and amulets and things, and they would, you know, supposedly grant you protection against evil spirits or luck or blessing or things like this.

You could have little curse tablets made where if you had a business rival and you didn't like them and you wanted your business to prosper and theirs to not, then you would have a curse tablet made and you would bury it outside their door so that all the demons would get them.

Okay, so there's these spiritual practices, there's divination, there's spells, there's bindings, there's demons, there's exorcisms.

So this is not an atheistic city, right?

They're very familiar with spiritual power, but the problem was they thought they knew what real spiritual power was.

It was almost obsessed with the spirit world.

But but the things that they thought they were doing for protection or blessing, are have you ever heard of, I don't know, maybe you've lived in areas like this, but cities where, say, the mafia or the mob, or say maybe in another country where like a cartel controls an area.

Okay, and they'll go into the local businesses and say, listen, we're gonna charge you a little fee and we're gonna protect you.

Okay?

As long as you're under our protection, we won't let anybody harass you, won't let anybody hurt you, right?

But you've got to pay the fee.

Basically, you've got to pay the rent, okay, in the area.

We're the landlords, we're gonna protect you.

Okay, but who are they protecting you from?

Yeah, they're protecting you from themselves.

And so they're not protectors, they're masters, right?

They're ruling over you, they're they're controlling you, they're basically threatening you into giving them money.

Okay, and so this is the relationship that these Ephesian people have with the spirit world.

It's one of they think blessing and protection, but it's really bondage to these non-belevolent spirits.

And so it's into this city and into this reality that Paul brings the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It says in verse 11, they were doing extraordinary miracles, or God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Skeva were doing this.

But the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?

And the man in whom was the evil spirit leapt on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

And so now the feet the Ephesians encounter a power that's greater than anything that they've ever known.

It says God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul.

But the power that was being manifested here was not Paul's power, was it?

Whose power was it?

It was God's power.

Okay, Paul's just doing the things God told him to do, isn't he?

Paul's showing up.

He's reasoning.

Okay, the other the word is in Greek is really dialoguing.

He's dialoguing with people, he's sharing the gospel with people, he's teaching and training and equipping disciples, and as he does, God's doing the part that only God can do.

People are being healed, they're being delivered from demonic oppression, they're being delivered from spiritual or otherwise some kind of bondage.

And they're probably seeing Paul and thinking that this power is coming from some greater magic that Paul has, right?

Does that make sense?

They're seeing Paul cast out demons.

In the name of Jesus, I command you to come out of him.

Come out of her.

In the name of Jesus, be healed.

He's seeing, they're seeing this happen.

And so they see what's happening and they think they've just discovered some new magical power that they can use.

And it lines up in their minds with something that they already believed, because there was a thing called name magic.

And what they believed was that if you could get the name, okay, that these spirits, these aeons, these daimonists, the demons, that they had a secret name.

And if you could discover their secret name, then you could use their name to bind them and bend them to your own will and use their power how you wanted to use it.

And so they think, oh, we just heard him say the secret name.

We've got the name of Jesus.

We're gonna use the secret name.

And so they try to use it.

I adjure you by the Jesus that Paul preaches.

Comes off a little different that way, doesn't it?

They're saying, I exercise you in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches.

And so the demon responds to him.

Well, I know Jesus.

Everyone knows who Jesus is.

Remember when Jesus walked the earth?

Who was the first one to always recognize him?

The demons.

The demons always were the first to recognize him.

They knew who he was.

He couldn't hide from them.

These are spirit beings.

They can see the spirit behind the, we're only seeing the conne.

We're seeing the flesh.

We're seeing the body, right?

That's all we're seeing, but they're seeing the big spirit, right?

That's that's really inhabiting that.

Okay?

And so they're like, I know who you are.

I know exactly who you are.

They say, the name of Jesus, who Paul preaches, the demon's like, Well, I know who Jesus is.

And in fact, I even recognize this Paul guy.

He's been around here casting us out of everybody.

But I have a question for you: who are you?

And so the demon in the guy leaps on him and overpowers them.

And they end up running out of the house naked.

It doesn't work out so well for them.

Because Jesus is not a magic word.

And Jesus is not just some other spiritual power among other spiritual powers.

Jesus is Lord.

And so when Paul uses the name of Jesus, Paul's what's the you tell me, what's the difference between when Paul uses the name of Jesus and when the sons of Skeva use it?

What's the difference?

Faith and trust?

What?

There you go.

Paul is submitted under the authority of Jesus.

He's using the name of Jesus out of a place of relationship.

He belongs to Jesus.

Okay, he's been cleansed by Jesus, he's been claimed by Jesus, and so he's using that from a place of relationship.

Paul wrote later on, he wrote a letter to the churches in this area.

Okay, and um he wrote one to this church here in Ephesus.

And in chapter one, he's trying to tell them these people that he loves, these people that he discipled for three years that he spent in Ephesus, he's trying to tell them the things that he's praying for them.

And so he says, I don't cease to give thanks for you, remembering in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus, Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places.

And then notice this part far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And so notice what he says here.

That God the Father has seated him far above, far above every name, every authority, every principality, every power, every dominion.

He seated him far above, not slightly above, not alongside, not locked in some sort of, you know, eternal heavenly cosmic struggle.

They're not sitting at a table, arm wrestling, and both of them are super buff, and their veins are popping and their shirts are ripping, and they're like, ah.

That's the picture that some of us have in our minds.

But Christ is not equal, he's not struggling, he's far above.

In Luke 10, I remember this scene where Jesus sends out 72 and he gives them authority over spirits and he gives them the ability to heal.

Okay, and so the 72 go out and they're proclaiming the kingdom of God has come, the kingdom of God is here, and they're laying hands on the sick and they're being healed, and they're casting out demons.

And they come back and they're all excited, and they're like, Lord, even the even the spirits are subject to us in your name.

And what does Jesus say to them?

He says, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

He says, Don't rejoice that the spirits are subject to you.

Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

And as I was writing this message, I had that picture in my mind, you know?

Have you ever seen a lightning flash?

Like, and I'm not talking about a California one.

Have you seen like a Texas lightning flash?

Anyone here?

It's different, isn't it?

I remember I was a kid going on a road trip with my grandparents, and they took me all the way back to Illinois, and one of those, you know, way on the way back, we were going through Texas, the northern part of Texas, and there was lightning, and it's like hitting the ground.

It hit the ground, like not far ahead of us, and it's like pure sparks shooting, and we're like, and I'm a little kid, I'm like, oh my gosh! You know?

It's scary.

But how fast does lightning strike?

Yeah, it's like instant, right?

It's instant, it's powerful, it's an overwhelming force.

You can't stop it, you can't resist it.

That's how quickly God is able to defeat Satan.

Like the moment, the instant that he chose to remove him from his presence, he was removed by a power that was so vastly superior to his own that there was no ability to resist it.

It was just done, done.

There is no comparison between the power of darkness and the power of God.

Paul also wrote a letter to another church in this area, the church at Colossae.

And in chapter 1, he talks about Jesus, okay?

He's talking about Jesus in this verse right here.

By him, by Jesus.

All things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

Those are what those are, is those are spiritual beings, okay?

We're not talking about people sitting on thrones.

We're talking about authorities, demons, you know, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities, that they were created by him.

They weren't evil then, but he made them because he made everything that is.

All things were created through him and for him, and he's before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And so this is the difference between puny demons like Satan and Jesus.

See, Satan's a creature, he's a created being, and he likes to make you believe that he's big and powerful and strong, and he's a big roaring lion, but guess what?

His teeth are all pulled out.

And he has no bite for those who are in Christ.

See, he's a creature, he's a created being, and Jesus is the creator.

And so, contrary to what the sons of Skeva believe, the claims of Jesus Christ's church isn't our spiritual magic is more stronger than yours.

It's more stronger than yours.

It's that Jesus Christ is Lord and He's my Lord, and He's rescued me.

And so, as people begin to realize the superiority of God's power over everything they've ever known, things begin to change there.

They begin to respond.

But the power of God isn't just demonstrated in healings and in deliverances from demons, is it?

It's also demonstrated through the changed lives of his people.

And so in verse 17 it says, This became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon all of them, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled.

Also many of those who were now believers came confessing and divulging their practices, and a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all.

And they could counted the value of them, and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

So the word of the Lord continued to increase and to prevail mightily.

And so, as the people see the power of God, as people are coming to faith in Christ, maybe they've been standing with one foot in and one foot out for a time, you know, like they've tasted Jesus, they begin to experience his power in their life, but they haven't quite been willing to get rid of these old charms and these old incantations and their old grimoires and spell books and all the things that they had known for their whole lives.

So those are still sitting over there on the shelf, but as they begin to experience the transformation of God and they see his power, they're repenting.

They're repenting of their magic arts and their pagan spirituality and their worship of demons and they're bringing out their grimoires, they're bringing out their spells, they're bringing out their Ephesian letters, and they literally make a bonfire and throw them on there and they burn them.

And they're valuable.

But they don't even bother to sell them, they just burn them and they walk away.

And this is the picture we were talking about in the Bible study.

This is a picture of like, you know, Christ has saved me, He's delivered me, I'm following Christ, and I'm burning that bridge behind me.

Like, I'm not going back to that.

I'm not going back to that person I was.

I'm not going back to those things I did.

I'm not gonna still try to hold on to a little bit of this.

I'm letting all of that go and I'm burning it, and I'm walking after Jesus.

And so in Colossians chapter 1, that same letter, Paul explains to them a little bit in this section.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

He's been explaining about the things that God has done for us.

And so he explains to them exactly what God the Father has done for those of us who are in Christ.

Amen?

He says this He has delivered us from the domain of darkness, and He's transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.

Okay.

In other words, when we were born, all of us are born under this domain of darkness.

What is a domain?

A domain is an area of jurisdiction, it's an area of authority, it's an area that is your territory.

Okay?

And so before John chapter 1, this world, because of our sin, was the territory of Satan.

John 1 · chapter mention

Then he had jurisdiction and authority here.

Not because he was so powerful, but because of our sin.

Because we were separated from God.

And based upon our sin and our inability to do anything about our sin, he could accuse us.

He could hold us down under that.

He could come after us, he could sprighten us.

His teeth could actually bite us.

But this is what the God the Father has done: that he's delivered us from the authority and the jurisdiction of Satan and darkness and sin by doing what?

By paying the penalty for our sin.

So the thing that he had on us was our sin.

But that's been paid in full.

And by doing that, he redeemed us from the domain of darkness, and he transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.

It says, in whom we have redemption and deliverance or forgiveness of sins.

It's like Carlos said.

Like you're under the authority of a new kingdom.

You have rights and privileges and protections as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, of the kingdom of Christ.

Satan can't touch you anymore.

I see things on the internet, and they're like, you know, Christians.

And they're like, yeah, you know, I'm this Christian's possessed by the devil.

No, he's not.

If he's possessed by the devil, he's not a Christian.

Because darkness can't dwell with light.

Amen?

The spirit in you is greater than the spirit that's in the world.

And so because we're citizens of a new kingdom, we don't have to pay the mob to protect us from themselves anymore.

We've been brought into the kingdom of the beloved son, and we don't need spells, and we don't need incantations, and we don't need magic books, and we don't need formulas, and we don't need charms, and we don't need amulets, and I don't need no nasty stinking name from some ugly little beauty demon.

Because I've got the name of Jesus.

I'm under the name of Jesus.

And at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

The more you reach for the things of darkness, the more they enslave you, the more they put you in bondage.

But Jesus doesn't enslave people.

Jesus sets people free.

It says, for freedom, Christ has set you free.

In verse 20, it says, So the word of the Lord continue to increase and prevail mightily.

But what does it mean that the word of God was prevailing?

Well, the place where the word of God prevails is our hearts.

Amen.

And so in verse 21, about that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way, for a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines to Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsman.

These he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth, and you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

And there is a danger that not only this trait of ours may come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.

When they heard this, they were enraged and were crying out, Great is Artemis at the Ephesians.

And so the city was filled with confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians, who were Paul's companions in travel.

So as Paul came to the city of Ephesus, his focus was almost just the same as it was at Corinth.

His focus was the gospel.

He told them in Corinth, I determined to know nothing but Christ and Christ crucified.

So he's there for the gospel.

He's there to preach Jesus.

He didn't come down into town and start an anti-magic movement.

He wasn't distributing a petition against the worship of Artemis.

He wasn't holding rallies, criticizing the public officials of the city.

He was reasoning, dialoguing daily in the temple of Tyrannis, I mean the hall of Tyrannis.

He was sharing the gospel with those who hadn't heard it, who didn't know Jesus.

He was leading people to Jesus.

He was discipling followers of Jesus to maturity and raising up and appointing leaders who would do the same.

And so as the church is built up, as people follow Jesus, their lives begin to bear witness to the power of God that's within them.

And it literally begins to affect the culture around them.

And so Demetrius and the silversmiths and the craftsmen, they start looking at their accounting, right?

They pull up QuickBooks and they're looking at their books and they're like, oh my gosh, business is down.

We're not selling as many shrines, we're not selling as many idols.

What are we gonna do?

This Paul guy is telling us that our dumb little statues are not actual gods and people aren't buying them, they're following Jesus.

But why?

Why are people not buying idols?

They don't believe in him anymore.

They're getting saved because they're encountering real power.

They're being delivered from the influence of the spiritual mob.

They met Jesus, is why.

And Jesus changes people, and when enough people start to be changed, the culture around us changes.

And so, church, I want to end on this because this is a principle that I think that the church may have misunderstood in our day.

Ephesus was a city that was obsessed with power.

But the problem was it was the wrong kind of power.

And I wonder sometimes if we make the same mistake.

Because we look around and we see the problems of our world too.

We see the brokenness of our society, we see the young generations becoming lost, we see the ugly things of our world, we see the injustices around us that we want to change.

And because we want to change it, our instinct is to reach for just whatever power that we can get a hold of.

And so we reach for the power of political movements, or we reach for the power of the media, or we reach for the power of debates and arguments and criticism.

We reach for the power of money and influence.

But that's not the power that Luke's been showing us in this chapter, is it?

Is it?

I'm a little sleepier this week, and I think you are too.

What Luke's showing us in chapter 19 is that the way that God uses to bring change through his church to the culture around them is not the church exerting external pressure on the systems of the world.

It's not us trying to use the channels of power available to us in the world.

God brings change to the culture around his church when the hearts of his people are genuinely in change.

Amen.

And so the work begins here.

In your heart, yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and yours and mine.

And when our hearts truly begin to change, people see it.

And so he's gonna change the culture around us by changing us, and as the people encounter Jesus around us, because they see Jesus in us, then they begin to be delivered from the dominion of darkness.

They begin to be delivered from bondage to other spiritual powers or from addiction or from sin or from abuse or from destructive habits and behavior.

See, that's what's happening in Ephesus.

The gospel's transforming individual lives.

And in doing that, it's beginning to transform the culture around them.

And what this means for us, a faith church, is we don't possess the power to transform Norwalk from the outside, do we?

We don't possess the power to fix all the problems in our society through the Republican or the Democratic parties.

We don't have the power to save all the youth in our world.

But our focus was never supposed to be on harmonility over the power structures of our culture.

Our focus has always been Jesus, the one who's seated far above every other rule and authority and power and dominion and every other name that is named.

So if we want to see our world change, there's only one way.

And that's if individuals, men, women, and children, meet Jesus.

Like that's it.

The question is, can you let go of those little idols?

Can you let go of those little things that you just want to keep holding on to and you just can't let go?

Can you take that old crap and throw it on the bonfire and burn it up?

Because there's no power in it.

It's bondage, it's slavery.

It's continuing to put your hope in systems of the world and things that you still think are somehow gonna save everything.

But the power's not in those things.

The power is in Jesus, the power is in the Spirit of God within us to change us and make us better people.

Right?

Amen?

And so we need to bring Jesus to people.

Let God transform us and transform their hearts and minds until the name of Jesus begins to actually be held in honor.

Is the name of Jesus held in honor in our culture?

But maybe there's some fault in us for that.

Right?

So that's how God the Word of God prevailed in Ephesus.

And it's how the Word of God is gonna prevail here in Norwalk, one heart at a time.

Not because we're so good and we're so powerful, because we voted the right way, but because the one who saved us is changing us, and he'll do the same for them.

Amen?

Amen.

Lord, change us.

We pray, God, that you would help us, Father, to be faithful to you, faithful to your call, faithful to your gospel, faithful to your word, faithful to your truth.

We pray that you would help us, Lord, to cast down our idols, cast down the things that we hold on to, cast down the things that we look to, that we keep running back to, to numb us or to save us or to be our protectors.

I pray, God, in the name of Jesus, you would help us to burn them up and burn the bridge between us and them and never look back, and just trust you and follow you and believe, Lord, that if this world is going to change, it's gonna have to be your power that does it.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.