June 26, 2016
Pastor Frank Bowden

Sermon Notes

Today is really a continuation from last Sunday. It’s part two. If Paul Harvey were here he would say, “Now it’s time for the rest of the story.” A quick recap from last Sunday. We read about a spectacular moment that Jesus shared with three of his disciples on top of Mount Hermon. For a brief moment that night, Jesus revealed his true self to his disciples. He showed his full glory for Peter, James, and John to see. No other humans at that moment had seen Jesus the way that those three disciples got to see Jesus. It left them mind blown. They didn’t know what to do.

If you’re someone who has been to a real mountaintop not Pine Mountain or Stone Mountain but a real mountaintop, you can understand the effect that a mountaintop can have on somebody. You understand the effect of when you get to the summit and what you experience at the top of the highest peaks. You can understand what would drive people to want to go to top of the mountain. Also they can be a bit crazy too when you take into account what type of mountains they decide the climb. For example, Reinhold Messner a legend in the climbing community. Men’s Journal dubbed him the greatest mountaineer of his generation, maybe the greatest mountaineer of all time. Here’s the short list of Messner’s climbing achievements. He is the first man with climbing partner Peter Haber to scale Everest without the use of bottled oxygen. This was something that scientists and doctors said was absolute suicide and couldn’t be done but it didn’t stop these two crazy guys from trying to do it. That wasn’t enough for Messner because he turned right around in 1980 and decided to climb Everest again but this time he did it solo. Something else that had never before been done without the use of bottled oxygen. To make it even more complicated and exciting for him decided to use a route never before climbed and he did it in four days. This is probably one the most astonishing achievements in mountaineering history but for Messner that wasn’t enough. So, he began this journey of trying to summit the world’s tallest mountains. In the mid-1980s he became the first man to top all 14 of the world’s 8000 m summits. This is the holy grail of climbing achievements. The list is known as the 14 – 8000ers. If you’re like me and you’re wondering, “Okay I wonder how tall 8000 thousand meters really is?” That’s over 26,247 feet. If you’re like me and you’re wondering, “Wow that’s really tall. I wonder how tall 26,247 feet is?” Everest reaches 29,000 feet. That’s about where your commercial airliners like to cruise at. So, this is how high these men are climbing just for the fun of it. They understand the effect that the mountain summit can have on people and they’re a little bit crazy. If we’re honest, Messner has seen views of the world that many of us in this room will never get to see in our lifetime. He has seen the Earth from a perspective that without an airplane, helicopter, or Google we will never experience.

There is something that everyone of us in the room share with Messner.  We all share a common pain with him. After his first climbing campaign of an 8000 m summit, he and his younger brother who was with him, Guthner, began their descent down the mountain. Two days into the descent an avalanche occurred. It caught up Messner’s younger brother Gunther, swept him away, and killed him. They were never able to recover his body from this avalanche. All this happened not far from the base camp. Not too long before Messner was enjoying reaching one the world’s greatest highs. Now he is experiencing one of life’s deepest lows. No matter how great or how glorious the summit is all of us in this room understand, know, and have experienced how painful and how messy life in the valley below can be. That’s something we can all relate with. In today’s text in Luke chapter 9 Jesus shows us some truths about what life in the valley can really be like as he and his three disciples come down from the mountain.

People aren’t distractions…

Our goal today is to see people as Jesus sees people. To Jesus, people aren’t distractions. I know immediately some of you are thinking, “You must not have kids or coworkers. Or, you must not go outdoors because people are clearly distractions.” I have a little boy, Austin, who is amazing and he can be quite the attention grabber. He can begin take hold of our attention. So, yes I understand that but again we’re trying to see people the way that Jesus sees people. How does Jesus view people and interact with them throughout a normal day? That’s what I want to see. I think something that I noticed in this text is that to Jesus people aren’t distractions and people aren’t inconveniences to him. I want to pick this up halfway down the mountain, if you will in verse 37.

Luke 9:37- 39
37 On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. 38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. 39 And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and shatters him, and will hardly leave him. 

Get this picture with me. Jesus, Peter, James, and John are coming down the mountain. The three disciples are still trying to wrap their minds around what they just saw the night before. They’re still trying to get their whole story together and who was going to tell the other disciples what happened. You know they’re all fighting about which one’s going to be the one to tell everybody and how they’re going to say it. Is this going to be one of those big fish stories? Are they going to over exaggerate everything? They’re still mind blown from what they saw and before they could even get to the bottom they’re swarmed by crowds rushing up to see Jesus.

When we read this account from Mark’s Gospel he tells us this crowd is not exactly a tame crowd. Mark’s account tells us that the scribes had joined in and started arguments among the other disciples that were left behind. There’s tension in this crowd. There is anticipation in this crowd. There is excitement in this crowd. There’s surely some skeptics and some curious onlookers too. When we read this text all the focus and the attention is pointing to Jesus. As we read how Luke writes this the subject of the matter here isn’t the crowd or the issue we’re going to read about. The subject always stays the same in this text because it is always Jesus. The crowd shows us this when they don’t even allow him to come all the way down before they start running up the sides of the mountain to him. Not too long after they get near him, we hear a man screaming from the crowd, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son!” This is a father’s request that is filled with urgency and desperation. This is literally him asking Jesus to have pity on his son, to look at his son with favor or with compassion. This isn’t the type of question that a new parent has when their kid sneezes or coughs and you ask the doctor to look them over and tell you if anything is wrong with your kid or if it’s normal. I have many of those moments throughout the week with Austin. This is not the case with this father. This was a father’s plea for help if there ever was one. The fact that he brings up that this is his only son, possibly his only hope to continue his family line, heightens the urgency all the more with his desperate plea for help. “Teacher, I beg you! Look at my son!”

Luke tells us a little bit of what’s happening here with this boy. In Luke’s fashion, he gives more of a medical approach to this. He gives us some of the medical details. If you’re a medical person, you understand signs and symptoms. Luke knows this really well. The other Gospel writers Mark and Matthew don’t do this as well as Luke does. I don’t want us to think that just because Luke is a doctor writing this that he’s writing this off as a medical case. He’s not writing a prescription for this kid. He’s not making a diagnosis. Luke sees as a doctor, “I know what epilepsy looks like and this is something far bigger or far greater than that.” Luke see something here that is much larger at play in seeing this boy’s condition is being caused not from the sickness but from a demon.

Let’s see how Luke records the father’s description of this demon’s actions in his son’s life. He gets to the feet of Jesus and tells him, “Here’s what happening to my son. The spirit seizes and takes control of him.  He suddenly cries out and shouts uncontrollably. It convulses him making him shake and causing him to lose control of himself.” In Mark’s account the dad tells Jesus that the boy just randomly falls into the fire or falls into the water. He’s slung to the ground. He literally has no control over his own body. He’s foaming at the mouth. It shatters him or your translation may read it crushes him. This is a violent action of the demon itself in the boy’s body. It’s mauling him, tearing him, and causing bruising. It is physically wearing this boy’s body out. Then he notes that it hardly leaves his son. It happens over and over and over again. As soon as the boy is worn out to the point of not being able to carry on anymore he starts right back up again with the same thing. It never ceases. This boy’s body physically is just being deteriorated right in front of his dad. There’s nothing either one of them can do. We can sense the desperateness here of the father. Maybe some of the local docs wanted to classify this is as a case of epilepsy but Luke knew there was something far greater going on here.

What Jesus was met them near the base of this mountain is a clear picture for us of just how messy life in the valley below can be. You might ask the question, “Why didn’t Jesus just stay up on top of the mountain? He was having a lot more fun up there. He got to be himself which is nice.” You know the struggle. Sometimes you can’t really be yourself when you’re at work or you’re with other people. We have to keep it together a little bit for fear of what other people might think about you. Well at least for this moment Jesus was able to be who he really was on top of the mountain. He had a couple of his disciples with them. Why didn’t he just stay up there? That’s a great question. I think Bible scholar and theologian Warren Weirsbe gives us an answer to this in his book Be Compassionate. He wrote an entire series called the B Series. In this book Be Compassionate he tells of Jesus coming down the mountain of believers or Christians who just want to retreat into the spiritual highs of their walk and not really get into the messiness of the valley below. This is what Weirsbe says about this, “We dare not stay on the glorious mountaintop when there are battles to fight in the valley below.” If Jesus stayed at the top of the mountain, who’s going to deal with cases like this? Who’s going to handle the father, the son, and whoever else you might come into contact with?

Here’s the challenge for you and I this morning. The spiritual battle, Satan’s attacks, don’t wait to happen for when it’s convenient for you and I. Whether it’s you they are happening to or whether it’s other people who will seek you out when it’s happening to them, they don’t wait for when it’s convenient and you have time in your day. It would be far nicer and easier to run back up to the top of the mountain and camp out there where the sites are beautiful and life is easy; but folks, we’re not created for that. We’re created to live and to function in the valley below. That’s how God designed us. That’s why you don’t see cities on the top of Mount Everest. It’s not meant to be that way. So our task, goal, or challenge day by day is to not get too busy throughout our day to notice the obvious needs around us. In this case it was the boy with a demon. For you tomorrow it could be helping someone change a tire. For you it could be listening to a coworker who’s trying to do everything that she can to keep her family together but it’s feeling like everything is falling apart. Maybe it is sitting with somebody who’s just lost a loved one and they don’t know how to process what’s happening in their life right now. They just need someone to listen. Whatever it is each day you and I have an opportunity to be missional and meet people where they’re at. To be Jesus to them and to see people as Jesus sees people not as distractions or as interruptions in our day. To Jesus people are the ministry.

People are the ministry…

Jesus made a statement earlier in the Gospels where he says, “I came to seek and save that which is lost.” Jesus didn’t come for his own sake. People are the reason that Jesus was here. You may be saying, “People aren’t distractions. I don’t know about that. People are the ministry. I’m not sure about this one. Isn’t this for pastors. I don’t think this really applies to me.” Let’s read how the story unfolds from the father to Jesus.

Luke 9:40-43a
40 And I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” 41 Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.

Luke tells us something really concerning here at least to me when I read verse 40. The disciples had been trying to cast the demon out and they couldn’t. They were trying to be missional. They were trying to meet this father and son where they were at. They were trying to be Jesus to this family and they were failing miserably. Why? This is what concerns me when I read this because do you remember what Jesus gave to the disciples not too long before this? In Luke 9:1 Jesus gathered his twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, not just the non-epileptic causing one but all demons, and to heal all disease. He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

Verse six is where I get most concerned because it tells us they departed and went to the villages preaching the Gospel and healing everywhere. What concerns me is that not only were they given this power and authority but they have had success at doing this. So I’m sure when the dad brings his son to them for healing I bet every one of his disciples were thinking, “Yeah, I got this. Move out of the way. We’ll take care of it. No problem.” One after another after another failed and they couldn’t heal the boy. Why do you think that is? Was their power and authority a one-time usage thing? I don’t think so. I think Jesus told his disciples all the effort in the world by them or by the Pharisees in this case would’ve had no impact whatsoever. His disciples’ failure wasn’t because of a lack of effort. They tried. The father says they tried. The disciples’ failure wasn’t because of technique. They weren’t doing it wrong. The disciples’ failure wasn’t because of advice they received. Their failure was because they didn’t believe that they needed God’s power to succeed. They didn’t believe that they needed God in this moment. Matthew tells us it was because of their little faith that they couldn’t cast the demon out. Mark tells us it was their lack of praying and fasting that they couldn’t cast the demon out. All we see is a frantic scene of attempts and struggles to heal this boy. They were trying to do something that only God could do. They were trying to do this in their own human effort to remove a foe that was far more powerful than they were. When Jesus gave them this authority to cast out demons and to heal it wasn’t in their own power to begin with. It was always from the power of God. These disciples, even in the brief moment that Jesus was gone, allowed their diligence and devotional disciplines to erode. They were trying to do something on their own. The result was a lack of power. The mistake they were making was they were trying to live off yesterday’s successes and victories for today’s battles. They learned real that quick you can’t do that. You might have had a great spiritual victory last week or yesterday but you can’t carry that over to today’s fight. That’s what the disciples were trying to do and they learned real fast that doesn’t work.

We can see the frustration that Jesus had with his disciples and with the people in verse 41 when he calls them all out: the crowd, the father, the disciples, and the scribes. He calls everybody out when he says, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you?” You wouldn’t be surprised to hear this kind of statement from say a kindergarten teacher a few weeks into the school year. You wouldn’t be surprised hearing these words from an Army drill instructor with his new recruits but this is Jesus. This is the sinless Son of God saying these kind of words to these people. Jesus is saying, “I have done everything for you. I’ve healed. I’ve preached. I’ve saved. I’ve loved. I’ve taught you and yet you still refuse to believe much of what I say to you.” He gets to a point where he’s almost throwing his hands up.

Luke brings this focus back to the greatness and the uniqueness of Jesus here. He doesn’t dwell on the frustration Jesus had. Everything in this story points to Jesus and his greatness. Luke draw our attention to what he does when he says, “Bring the boy to me.” Jesus doesn’t need to do an examination like a doctor would. He’s able with his words to rebuke the spirit and heal the boy. Did you notice what Jesus did here? He rebuked and he healed. He rebuked the spirit from this kid and he healed the boy. I think if I were the father and brought my son to Jesus with this issue just rebuking the spirit would have been good enough for me. Luke as the physician adds this other detail that he healed the boy. One thing that comes to my mind is that we’re told that this spirit had been causing all sorts of bodily harm and affliction to this kid. Throwing him into the fires and into the waters and slamming him into the ground. Jesus not only touches the inner issue, the soul level issue of this child, but he also touches and heals the outward and physical elements of this kid. You can imagine the crowd’s reaction to this when Jesus was doing this right before their eyes. He gave the boy back to his father and the bruises, scars, cuts, and burns were starting to disappear right before their eyes. The text says the crowd was amazed. Your translation may say “astonished”. Literally that means they were struck out of their mind much like the disciples were the day before on top of the mountain. They were completely mind struck by what they were witnessing.

Here’s what I’m learning from this. If I want to see people the way that Jesus sees people, not as distractions, interruptions, or inconveniences to my routine but if I truly want to see people as a divine appointment, my faith has to make sense off the mountain as well as on the mountain. Jesus has left and is preparing a place for us. We’re to remain faithful while he’s gone. I think that’s the question for us. Are you actually living by faith? Are you actually relying on the power of God every moment of your day? Or, are you working really hard at attempting things in your own power? Do you confront life’s trials and the messiness that life in the valley brings with prayer, with fasting, or with diligent disciplined time in his Word? Or, do you think you can deal with it on your own? How are you going on about day by day navigating life in the valley? As you see in this text, Jesus is grieved when his people lack faith in the valley because he’s given us the spirit of power, of love, and self-discipline not a spirit of fear or timidity. So he’s grieved when we lack faith.

It is important for us to understand just how important the role of prayer plays in the life of a believer. We could pick any of the disciplines but we’re going to pick prayer because this is what connects this week’s story to last week’s story. Why did Jesus go on the mountain to begin with? It wasn’t to see the sights. We heard last week he went up there to pray. Let’s look at how important prayer is in the life of the believer. The amount that we pray is directly proportional to our faith. You can learn a lot about somebody and their faith walk with their prayer life. If we operate in the realm of unbelief, we will attempt everything in our own power. If we’re trying to operate in the realm of faith, the people of prayer will also be people of power. Here’s my prayer for our church, that we are people who believe so strongly in the power of God that we will begin praying first not after we’ve tried everything else. My prayer for our church is that we will believe so strongly in the words and the promises of Christ that we understand that our best strategy to making an eternal impact in the Chattahoochee Valley is to seek Christ first. We can do all the local mission trips we want but if we try to do it on our own power we’re not going to have that big of an impact on our city. We have to do it with the power of Jesus because this is a spiritual battle that we’re fighting in our community. We can’t fight the spiritual with the physical here. We have to depend on the strength and power of Jesus.

Some of you are living this directly right now. Maybe you’re a parent or grandparent, you’ve tried everything and you’ll do anything for that kid you’re trying to raise but you’re at the point now where if God doesn’t do a miracle you know this is going to end in disaster. The answer for you today is the same as it was for the father and son in the text today. The answer is Jesus. Maybe you’re a guy or girl struggling with an illness or an addiction and it has complete control over your mind and your body. You feel like you’re in over your head and there’s no beating this. You’re convinced you cannot overcome this. The answer for you today is the same as it was for the son – Jesus. Maybe today you’re like the crowd and you’re a bit skeptical or unsure about Jesus. You’re curious as to what this whole church thing is all about. Maybe the only reason why you’re here today is because you want to see how crazy we really are in church. The answer for you today is the same as it was for the crowds, skeptics, and scribes the answer for is Jesus. Maybe it’s been a long time since you came to faith and that mountaintop experience that you first had with Jesus is a faded memory and life in the valley has actually been really good to you. The answer for you today is still Jesus just as it was for them in our story today. Depend on Jesus. I don’t know where each of you are today in your walk with him but I do know that if you don’t know Jesus and have a personal relationship with him, that is something you can walk out of here with this morning. You can walk out of here knowing that you have a relationship and a friendship with the Father that starts today and lasts forever. There’s no promises in the Bible that your life is going be easy, good, and full of blessings, if you come to a relationship with Jesus. There’s no guarantees of that. There are guarantees that when life in the valley gets messy, difficult, and painful you won’t go through it alone.

Next Steps

* I realize that I cannot save myself from the affects of sin, I need a Savior. Today, I commit my life to Jesus for the first time.

– I often let the busyness of my day distract me from ministering to others.  Pray that I can meet a need of someone around me this week.   

+ I need help being diligent about spiritual disciplines. Please contact me about opportunities to grow in this area.  

Discussion Questions

1. The battle against Satan’s attacks is a relentless, ongoing fight.  Describe a time you were caught off-guard by a spiritual attack?
2. Read Luke 9:1-6.  The disciples had been given power and authority over all demons, so why couldn’t they cast this demon out of the boy?
3. Jesus often models in Scripture his diligence in spiritual disciplines like prayer and fasting to combat Satan’s attacks.  How do you prepare to engage spiritual strongholds in your life?
4. The crowd was astonished by Jesus’ works. Has there been a time Jesus astonished you? Explain your answer.
5. In what spiritual discipline are you most weak? How can you grow strong in that this week?
6. Pray that we would be diligent in pursuing Jesus this week.