Touch of God

Well, good morning, good morning, saw a church family, Good morning to those of you tuning, tuning in on the livestream, um and good morning to those of you who are new here, who I haven’t met, look forward to meeting you, my name is dan, I’m one of the elders here at our church and we are going to continue this morning in our Coverage of the Gospel of Luke and we are going to be in Luke chapter 11, um, but as you’re turning there, I do have kind of a, something exciting, something to celebrate, maybe something to put before you, something for you guys to think about and be praying about um you know, this time that we live in in history, it’s a, it’s an interesting time, there’s a lot of, of, of questions, there’s a lot of fear, there’s division here and there and one of the things that’s really important for us to get is that we are the people of God, we are the church were the people who have been shaped by a love of God, who are rooted in the hope of God and his church is a part of his unshakable kingdom. And so in times like this, there needs to be a church, there needs to be a presence for the gospel to be preached for the word of God to be taught to remind people that God is still God, even when we are afraid, even when we have questions and on that note, one of our dear elders is praying and seeking the Lord about when and where to plant a church derek grumpy. And so I want you guys to be aware of that. Be praying about that. Be thinking about that because it’s so needed in this hour. We’re not going to allow darkness to shape how we think about the future going forward. But we’re gonna think about our God, his plans, his words. And we’re gonna lean into that. There needs to be more of the testimony of jesus, christ, Amen, amen. And so we’re praying about new places to go and to bring that testimony to bring that witness. So on that note, right, we’re gonna look at Luke 11. I’m just excited. I’m really excited this morning. I’m really excited for this time. I’ll be honest with you though, as I was looking at this passage, started reading it last week. I started reading it every day last week, every day this week multiple times, john down notes multiple times this morning. And there was not a sense of comfort about teaching this passage because it’s a difficult passage. When I was younger in the faith, I would have been really eager, bold and excited to teach this passage and probably most of what I would have said would have been heresy. But now through the grace of the Lord is he’s helping me to understand some things. I must admit it’s a tough passage. But that’s what we do here at sewer. We don’t back away. We don’t shy away from tough passages. That’s why we teach through books of the bible so that we God’s people can be exposed to the full and whole counsel of God. Amen. So I’m gonna read the passage now, verse 14 of Luke. He says now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out the mute man spoke and the people marveled. But some of them said he casts out demons by the eligible the prince of demons, while others psa test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. But he knowing their thoughts, said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste and a divided household falls. And if satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand for? You say that I cast out demons by be eligible. And if I cast out demons by being visible. Who by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed guards, his own palace, his goods are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor and which he trusted and divides his spoil. Whoever is not with me is against me, but whoever does not gather with me scatters. When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person. It passes through waterless places seeking rest and finding none, it says I will return to my house from which I came and when it comes it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first. And he said these things and as he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed. But he said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Let us pray, father, thank you for your word. Thank you for your kingdom. God. Each and every one of us in this place myself included what we need you, what we need you and ways in which we’re not even aware of. We need you Lord in ways in which we are aware God, we need you. We need your presence. We need your word Lord to satisfy, to strengthen and to feed our souls this morning. And I pray God that through this word, that would exactly be the outcome and to the glory of christ and for his name, Lord for his name’s sake. I pray amen. Have you guys ever heard of the Midas Touch? Well this morning, I entitled this teaching the real Midas touch. This whole idea of the Midas touch began believe it or not, as a part of greek mythology, there was a king named Midas was a wealthy king. He showed hospitality or kindness to a stranger and as a part of his reward, one of the gods said, I’ll grant you a wish, whatever it is you desire. Midas wanted everything he touched to become gold. And that God, according to greek mythology granted him that ability. And so bidis went away with this new ability. He touched a twig and it turned to gold. Yes, more riches for me. He touched the stone. It turned to gold. Yes, more riches for King Midas. And so he was excited. And then as he is sitting at his dinner table that night with all his subjects around him and he touches his food. It turned to gold. He picked up his chalice to drink. It turned to gold. King minus quickly thought to himself, Boy, this gift has really turned into a curse. I can’t even eat food. Now this is mythology, right? And since the retailing of this mythological tale, we have movies, a horrible movie that was made in the nineties called the Midas touch. We have marketing campaigns and slogans talking about the Midas touch, Try this product. Buy our product, Try our service. We have the Midas touch. And in every scenario, just like King Midas, you’re not satisfied, fully clever marketing. An interesting tale from the Greeks and yet not satisfied again this morning, we’re gonna talk about the real Midas touch the finger of God, the presence of God drawing near God touching your life, God impacting your life. God coming into your life in such a way that your life is radically changed and transformed. The real Midas touch is God’s presence coming and delivering us from sin. God’s presence shaping and transforming us more into the person of the Lord. Jesus christ God bringing us into his new creation as the Kingdom of God as the people of God. That’s the real Midas touch that we’re gonna talk about this morning. And in our story, jesus as he’s going about doing good. I love how Acts 10 verse 38 talks about Jesus’s ministry, His earthly ministry in this regard, it says that he he was anointed by God, that he was anointed by the holy spirit and that he went around doing good casting out devils because God was with him and what what he, what he was doing was giving the people a foretaste of the kingdom of God, helping people to see that the present reality that you live in is under the Dominion of the Kingdom of Darkness. And so jesus comes and says, here is the Kingdom of God breaking into darkness, stepping into your mess on this planet and cleaning everything else up if you’ve been around me long enough, you know that one of my favorite phrases is, you know, jesus left, he, he left heaven and every place he walked was the hood. It was ghetto, so to speak. Spiritual hood. Spiritual ghetto, broken, jesus loves the hood and so he comes upon this family, this young man who has a team and that was mute, that’s important, right? Cause we’re looking at this, this young man, this family, you know when you bring a child home from the hospital, one of your first prayers is yes, God, thank you for a healthy wife, a healthy baby, right? That’s what you’re praying for. A healthy wife and a healthy baby as you’re coming home from the hospital. And yet in this case this family for so many years has had to deal with the reality that their son, I can’t speak. They don’t know why they don’t, they can’t explain it, they don’t understand what has happened here and jesus steps into this environment and says, here is the finger of God, here is a taste of the kingdom of God and he heals this man and the mute spirit leaves him and after the spirit leaves him, some people observing this, a marvel, a marvel that they’re amazing, I’ve never seen anything like this happened before. Our men walked on this planet and touch someone who had never spoke before and that man now speaking, I’ve never seen that before. The finger of God had come and touch this man’s life, so they marveled marveling isn’t faith, they marvel at this demonstration of power. They marvel at this man being made whole. They marvel because like you and I, they all long to be made whole to have the image of God restored to us in its perfection and our relationship with God in its perfection and marvel at the power of God to do that. You and I have that longing. There are aspects of our lives where we look at various components of of of what we have to deal with on a day to day basis, whether it be illness or sickness or or different flaws or things that we don’t like or or habits that we can’t seem to shake. We look at these things and we long for wholeness for a return to the perfect image of God in us so we could fully enjoy God and fully enjoy the life that he made us for. And so the people observed this and they marveled. But again, marveling isn’t faith Moving on that passage. In verse 15, it says some of them said that he cast out demons by Beelzebub. All the elder bowl is just kind of a, it’s a reference to some old testament idols. It could mean a number of things. Lord of the flies or the Lord of the dung or Lord of the temple could mean any of those, depending on the context and how it is being used. But immediately jesus understood that they were calling him, satan everyone is marveling at the demonstration of the power of God. Some are marveling because they’re like, I don’t understand what’s going on, others are marveling and thinking, I have a lot of questions and yet others are saying this is yet a demonstration of the eligible of the devil, that’s why he’s doing this and he says verse 17 that he knew their thoughts. Now luke pins that phrase for us because he wants you to understand something jesus is God, I don’t know your thoughts. You know, I thought it was clever when I was dating my wife too, say things like I bet I can guess what you’re thinking in your head. Mhm And then responding, you’re thinking, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t know what she was saying, jesus knows exactly what you’re thinking, I knew exactly what they were thinking because he’s God. And so he looking at his audience, people not sure who he is, People skeptical that he is the son of God or the Maasai and people hating him, it’s got incredible patience and wisdom and again to explain to them and I hope you can see that what he explains to them is a picture of the spiritual warfare that we all deal with on a day to day basis. Immediately, people who love to talk about spiritual warfare want to get to the casting out of demons, but jesus is describing here for them what the actual spiritual warfare is about and it’s about the kingdom of satan first he explains to them how foolish it would be for Satan to do war against satan, Where is he going to get with that? How far is he going to go with that philosophy even? They wouldn’t do such a thing. Not intentionally, it’s foolish and then he reminds them that even some of their own believe in exorcism, there were jews that went around now, they had elaborate kind of approaches to it, do this, drink this, try this, you know, we’ll we’ll try this special incantation or whatever the case may be to see someone delivered from a demon he says. And if your sons are doing that, you know what by what power are they doing it and they’re going to be your judges because at least they understand that demonic possession of a person is bad and then it would be better for that person to be free of it and you’re not even acknowledging that. So he says, they will be your judge verse 20. Again, the real Midas touch, just put it, it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons. Then the Kingdom of God has come upon you, he says, When a strong man, fully armed guards, his own palace, his goods are safe. But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor and which he trusted and divides his spoil. He’s talking about Satan. Satan is the strong man the moment sin entered this world when the first man adam sinned and disobeyed God. And since spread to mankind, it has been the plan the scheming the efforts of satan and every member of his demonic kingdom to keep mankind and unbelief, disobedience and hardness towards God. It has been his plan that you and I would die in our sins and spend eternity in hell with him. It has been his plan to help peoples nations to become so entrenched in their culture and in the beliefs of their culture that if someone were to even mention God that those people would have such a visceral reaction to it, that they want to kill the messenger. So those nations would stay in bondage to unbelief in darkness, Satan is the strong man, but Jesus is the stronger man, Jesus is the stronger man and it’s not a close battle Of, of Mike between the two. No, when he entered the ring with SATan, it was a decisive knockout blow. He crushed the head of the service. So Jesus is saying here two, his audience, those who marvel, but don’t quite understand those who marvel and yet are skeptical and those who marvel and attribute his works to the devil, he says to them that the finger of God has come because the real Midas touch is God setting nations free from the Dominion of Satan. That’s the real Midas touch the power of God to deliver people from under the Dominion of satan and it gives the people a foretaste of this kingdom. That’s what he’s doing here. Because the strongman, satan wants you to ignore God, die and go to hell with him and his demons. They want you to do what they do be as they are. Act as they act and say what they say. And we see that even in the response of these religious leaders, they’re just parenting. They’re just parenting. The speech of demonic voices, slandering, confuse the people. Don’t let the people see that this is the finger of God, jesus being a wise and faithful king, knowing what he is doing, understanding his purpose, why he has come, he is headed towards Jerusalem. He is on his way to Jerusalem to save hardened sinners. Like the ones in this crowd like you and me, he’s on his way to Jerusalem, but he wants us to understand there is no neutrality with God. There is no country like a like a Switzerland that says we’re not going to engage. No, you’re either in the Kingdom of God or you’re in the kingdom of satan. You cannot be in both. You cannot be in the middle, you cannot be on the fence about this man, jesus christ who has drawn near to save you and your sin, deliver you from your sin, you can’t be on the fence, he says, whoever is not with me is against me. Whoever does not gather with me scatters, you keep the people in darkness when you scatter, you pushed the people away from God when you scatter. But if God has touched your life, if the power of God has touched your heart, then your life ought to point people to the kingdom of God, your life to point people to the Kingdom of God. So it goes on to describe what will happen when he drives an unclean spirit or a demonic spirit out of a person that it travels in various drier air places. But then it returns With seven other demons to enslave the person again and making that person worse than it was the first time again, jesus is saying there is no middle ground and I think he’s saying this to the one who has just received this miracle. I think he’s saying it to him and to his family. If you do not cling to christ, if you will not abide in christ, it’s gonna be worse for you because satan won’t stop pursuing. If you won’t embrace this freedom that I’ve given to you and see that it comes with walking with God and knowing God, miracles don’t produce faith, only the word of God can do that. These people saw a great miracle. I saw an amazing example of the healing power of God, they marveled. But some are still on the fence. Some were skeptical, not in the sense that they were trying to truly understand, but skeptical in the sense that they were trying to to disprove it. And others were flat out against him, miracles don’t produce faith. The whole history of the people of God in the old testament Being led out of Egypt one miracle after another, it was said of that generation that they had hard hearts, miracles don’t produce faith. Having Godly family members won’t produce faith. Having a father who was a pastor or a grandfather who was a pastor or a great grandfather who was a pastor growing up around the church or in the church doesn’t necessarily mean that you will have faith. That’s what jesus is saying to the mom in the crowd there Verse 27 when the mom raised her voice and said, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed. We know based on the description that this was a mom because she is familiar with that this is a mom, because she’s thinking about how proud she would be of her adult Children doing well and excelling in life. Oh that’s my boy. And she said, oh I wish I was your mom or I wish my kids were like you blessed is your mom, jesus said yes, but yes, because this is a fulfillment of what mary prophesies in the in the magnificence right where she prayed and declared that women throughout the generations will call me blessed because mary Virgin gave birth to jesus christ. But Jesus says. But blessed are those right blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it blessed, Are they who hear the word of God and keep it not because you were born into a family that goes to church, not because your great granddaddy was a preacher, not because your mom was a christian or your cousin was a christian. I know that you have been touched by the word of God and that your life now points others to the kingdom of God. That’s how we know you’ve heard it and you’re obeying it because people are seeing its impact on your life. You heard he believed and you keep it. God has touched your heart and now your life points others to the kingdom of God. This whole scene recorded in history such an amazing reminder to me just how merciful God is. This is the crowd that Jesus is dealing with. They don’t deserve forgiveness. Right? Many of us think, oh well if I had seen jesus do this miracle, I would have believed you forget human nature tainted by sin and you read back into those experiences what you now know on the other side of your salvation, but God is merciful. No one deserves. We’re forgiving the forgiveness of sin. And yet Jesus, it’s offering these people a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. So that they would understand the love of God so their hope would rest in his kingdom. It gets me every time. This is the real Midas touch God drawing near, touching your heart, touching your life. And if you hear his word and if you were to keep it, it will point others to the kingdom of God. Amen. And then let us pray. Okay father, we we submit to you in this moment, Your Lord over this moment, Your Lord over our lives. You know our thoughts, you know everything we’re wrestling with and dealing with. You know exactly what we need. Holy Spirit. Give us the grace to humbly receive what you provide to us, what you’ve provided to us in this world. Help us to keep it. God help us to be a people who are unashamed to have your name be attached to us and help us to be a people whom you are unashamed to put your name on. I pray this in jesus name. Amen.