Book: Luke

The Unique Identity of Christ

In this special Christmas Day sermon, Pastor Joe Babij presents the true meaning of Christmas by way of the person of Jesus Christ. More specifically, from Luke 1:31-35, Pastor Babij explains three foundational truths that inform you about the uniqueness of the identity of Jesus.

1. Jesus Is God (v. 35)
2. Jesus Is Man (vv. 31, 35)
3. Jesus Is Holy (v. 35)

Full Transcript:

We are looking at this morning Luke chapter 1, and I’d like your attention this morning on just three passages, actually verse 32, verse 31, verse 32, and verse 35 of chapter 1 of Luke, and let me read that for you. Verse 31 says:

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.

Verse 32:

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

Then down to verse 35, it says:

The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

Let’s pray. Father, this morning, as we come to celebrate this great time of year, that we know that Christ came into the world. He robed himself with human flesh, and he came into this world for a specific reason. And Lord, we are benefiting from that reason right now for all those who’ve come to believe in Christ as Lord and Savior. So Lord, for this time of year, this is special. No matter what all the others are saying, this is a special time for those who know you. And Lord, we are looking forward to what you’re going to finish doing as us being part of your plan, and then Lord, looking forward to the consummation of everything, knowing that you are Lord of all, from beginning to end and everything in the middle. And so for this we praise you. Lord, bless us this morning as we celebrate this day, and as we look at your word, which really gives us clarity on what really took place. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Christmas may mean different things to many people. It may mean gifts, receiving and giving. It means to some, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and his boss Santa Claus. It means mistletoe to some. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas to others. It may mean being together with family and friends, good fellowship, good food, singing Christmas carols, sitting down and watching ‘It Is a Christmas Carol’ or ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’ And for some, this time of year is bittersweet, has a bittersweet feeling to it because of a loss of a loved one or declining health or family troubles or financial issues or maybe just the despair of life and the weight of life. All these may have meaning for you or they may be meaningless to you. The most important thing to know is that these things are not the true meaning of Christmas. No matter what you think of Christmas or what you should or should not do at Christmas, if we’re going to celebrate Christmas at all, then the focus must be on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, while the New Testament doesn’t require that we celebrate Christmas every year, that, of course, there is certainly nothing wrong with the churches entering into a joyous time of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus into this cursed world as one of the most significant historical events that has ever occurred. And just like in the Old Testament when God commanded the people to remember certain events with annual celebration, it is the church’s opportunity to proclaim the truth concerning Jesus Christ and, yes, the incarnation of Emmanuel, God with us. And it is clear that human tradition has robbed so many of the truths concerning the birth of Jesus, why he came, who he is. The birth of Jesus Christ was the only way God chose that can provide a savior for lost and fallen humanity. How important that we sweep aside all human traditions and all the commercialism and the pagan errors and seek the truth that’s found in the Word of God. It is the Christian that can share about God’s indescribable gift of grace, about the hope that one has in Christ in the middle of a world of despair, about the truth of salvation in the midst of a world of noise and chaos and confusion.

Now, in our text this morning, there’s three foundational truths in this scripture which inform us about the uniqueness of the identity of Jesus. It was also these that the angel Gabriel included in his communication to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and Mary. The angel Gabriel came to Zechariah about the birth of John the Baptist who was going to prepare the way for the Lord. And when he came to him, the angel answered and said to him, I am Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. Now, if you know anything about what was going on, God hadn’t spoken through a prophet for 400 years. So for God to speak at all, they had the word of God, yes. But for God to speak through a prophet or an angel would be a very unusual event. And so Mary, I’m sure, and Zechariah was all ears when this took place. And they were as surprised as anyone else about the pronouncement that was coming their way.

And so John the Baptist is the first one, and he’s going to be the one who lays out the groundwork for the king to come. And only kings have a person assigned to prepare the things that are going to take place before the king arrives. And then the angel Gabriel speaks to Mary. What does he speak to her about? About the miracle that would take place in her body. For it says in chapter 1, verse 26 through 31, it says:

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.

But don’t get from that passage of Scripture that Mary was sinless. She was not sinless. She was a sinner just like everyone else and needed to be a savior just like anyone else. Now Mary’s child would be born as a result of the direct initiative of God. For it says in Luke 1:35,

The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

Now Joseph had really nothing to do with it. He was an outsider. He was a passive observer to the whole miraculous event. If God had not told him what was happening, he would have no idea what was happening. It is also significant that the angel Gabriel did not tell Mary to do something, to do anything. All he said to her and told her is that God was going to do something.

See, God was going to take the initiative. See, Mary was entirely passive also. Mary’s privilege was that God’s greatest miracle would take place in her body. So you see, brethren, God does not wait for us to save ourselves because we never will or never could save ourselves. What He does is He doesn’t wait for a deliverer to arise from the human race. He sends His Son to the human race. Jesus is the most unique person who ever was born into this world. And if you just read the Scripture, verse by verse, all the way through, you have to conclude that.

Now, this Lord’s Day and this Christmas morning, let’s consider together three foundational truths found in our Scripture text, which inform us about the unique identity of Jesus. And these were the very things that the angel Gabriel told to Mary. So then they’re important to us, too. I’m going to make it pretty simple this morning. The first unique thing about Jesus’ identity is this. Jesus is God.

Now, if you look in verse number 34, it says, ‘He will be great and He will be called the Son of the Most High.’ And then at the last part of verse number 35, it says, ‘And for that reason the Holy Child shall be called the Son of God.’ Now, your life, my life, began when you were conceived in your mother’s womb. Before that moment, you didn’t exist. God used the union of your mother and father to bring you into being. Before that, you were not. And without that, you would not have been. But before Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, God, the Son, already enjoyed a marvelous life.

In fact, speaking of Jesus’ birth, Paul, the Apostle Paul, said this in 2 Corinthians:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

And then Jesus himself makes a reference to this truth in the high priestly prayer where he prays and recorded in the Gospel of John where he says:

Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

See, Jesus was not like any other. His life did not begin in the Virgin’s womb. Before He was born in the stable, He shared the life of God. He was there in the beginning. It says in the Gospel of John 1, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ The Word is the Son of God who took human flesh and was born of a virgin. The one who has always shared the glory of the Father came to us. He did not rise up out of the human race by union of a father and a mother, but He came as a gift to the human race.

Now, why is this of such great importance that God should communicate to Mary this truth about Jesus being God? Well, it’s for this reason, because only God can reconcile sinful man to God. The only way on which sinful man could be delivered from the condemnation of sin was for someone to come from heaven to save them. As it says in 1 Peter:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

So salvation has to be from above down in order for God to bring us to Himself. Think of it like this, that suppose you are in a little small raft on the water, and you need to be rescued because you’ve lost your way. There’s a rope in the raft, but you can’t use it to climb up to the helicopter. Salvation has to be from the top down, so someone who is secured at the top is lowered on the winch, and by embracing Him, you are lifted with Him to the position from where He came. In other words, salvation has to be from above. Only God can save. We cannot climb up for the simple reason that we have nothing to climb on.

So this male child will be God, as it’s recorded in Scripture, His name will be called Emmanuel, which is translated God with us. So you see, Christ has come to us from heaven to earth, and in Him, God is reaching out to every person on this planet. Our Savior is God and therefore able to save to the uttermost.

I read a story about a man named Mel Trotter. He had lived most of his life as a drunkard and outcast. And just to show how much he loved liquor, when his little child was very sick, his wife gave him money to buy medicine, and instead he spent it on booze and the child ended up dying. Trotter was so drunk that he could not even attend the funeral. And later, he came under the hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ and was marvelously saved and became a preacher. And after painfully retelling his story in a message he preached from Hebrews 7:25, which says,

Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him,

And you may ask, well, how could a person like that be saved? He should be judged and condemned. The answer to that question is that he was judged and condemned. And because of his faith in Jesus, Jesus took the judgment in his place and paid his penalty in full by His sacrificial death, satisfying the justice of the Father. See, only God can reconcile sinful man to God. Mel Trotter concluded his story with these words, God is able to save from the gutter most to the uttermost. How great a salvation this is. God can save all immoral people as well as moral people, as well as Christless people. See, where sin and evil is found in the highest and in the lowest places, Jesus can save. So Mary needed to know that Jesus was God.

Secondly, the second unique thing about Jesus’ identity is pretty simple. Verse 35 in Matthew chapter 1, verse 23, and then also in verse 31, Jesus is a man. Now for some who have been around the Word of God for a while and a Christian for a while, to say that Jesus is a man may be a given. However, once we have grasped that Jesus is God, it is really every bit as important for us to grasp that He’s a man. Because on both of these fronts, these have been attacked during church history. His deity has been attacked and His humanity has been attacked. You have to have both to have what the Bible speaks of concerning Jesus Christ.

Now once you have grasped that Jesus is God, it is every bit as important for us to grasp that He is a man again. He took on human flesh and was born as one of us, entering and sharing our life. He became a human being. With all that goes with it, He became a human being. And in our passage in Luke 1:35, the angel Gabriel stressed to Mary that this child shall be born of you. In verse 31,

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus.

So she was going to actually have a real human baby. The child born would have a supernatural birth, unprecedented in all of human history, something that would never happen again. Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son. The Messiah would be born of a virgin. And if a woman became pregnant and had a son, that would not be a special sign. But if a virgin became pregnant and brought a son into this world, that’s a miracle. See, it was a miraculous sign that God gave us. It was foretold in Isaiah 7:14, where Isaiah says,

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:

All these promises of God are like signposts on a highway. You don’t sit on the top of the sign and expect the sign to take you to your destination. Instead, by faith in the message on the signpost and in the scripture, you follow its direction and move forward to where it points. See, God’s promise and his promises point us to a person, to a male child who would be called Jesus.

The fact that Jesus is a man is as important to our salvation as the fact that he is God. Now why? Because only a man can bear the punishment for man’s sins. That’s why Jesus had to become a man, so he can actually bear the punishment for our sins. But Jesus is a very unique and special man in at least four ways in regards to the bearing of the punishment for man’s sin. Number one, He was a sinless man. The scripture tells us He did not sin in His conduct. He committed no sin in 1 Peter 2. It says there He knew no sin. He didn’t even sin in His words. Jesus did not use words to bring insult. He didn’t use violence or threats ever. And people said he was possessed by demons. He was a glutton and a wine-bibber and a blasphemer. He was delusional. He was a perverter of the nation and a deceiver of people. Yet Jesus never strayed in word or deed, never got upset unjustly. Jesus never used anyone for a laugh, ever. 1 John 3:5 says,

You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.

So He was a sinless man. He was also a perfect man. No one has been perfect. God requires perfection to get into His presence, to be in His presence. And yet scripture tells us that He was the spotless, sinless Son of God. And for 33 years He lived it. And John the Baptist pointed to Him as the one, the Lamb of God, who will take away the sin of the world. And then 1 Peter, it tells us,

but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

So God ransomed His children by the highest cost possible, the precious blood of the Savior. That Christ’s blood is of inestimable great value that any earthly temporary commodity like silver or gold can compare to. That Christ purchased us with His own blood, not with any temporal human payment, but with the shedding of blood. And without Christ’s death as a man on the cross, nobody could be saved. And that was God’s plan, so He had to be a perfect man.

But he also had to be a willing man. The Bible tells us He had to be willing to die in the place of sinners. He didn’t die for Himself. He didn’t need to die for Himself. He had to die in the place of others. Like what Romans chapter 5 tells us,

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

And then in verse 8,

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

In other words, Christ had to become a man to die in our place. But He also had to be an able man. He had the ability to carry out the plan of salvation. And He had to carry it out to completion. He had to carry out to its finishing point. This man must be able to carry our sin away and lift it from us, and then pay the full price for that sin. The Bible says to give his life a ransom for many. So His life was a ransom. A “lutron” in scripture, a price paid to affect the release of one who is held in bondage. It was you and I who was held in bondage by sin, kept there, unable to free ourselves.

So the ransom was offered to God the Father against whom we had sinned, and who alone has the power to inflict the penalty. So then Jesus saw us caught in the slave market of sin, and had pity on our hopeless situation by paying the ransom price with His own blood in order to redeem us out of the slave market and bring us into the family of God. His sacrificial death on the cross purchased the release from bondage of those many sinners who would believe in Him.

And would you think that this baby in the virgin womb would accomplish such a thing? That the baby in the virgin’s womb was also the One who made the moon. He was the One, and Mary and all of us would learn that He would also be the one who would make the deaf hear, make the blind see, and raise the dead, and that He would be the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace, the King of all creation, the Savior, the great I Am, is who we’re talking about here. And no one else could have done this. Not one other person who ever lived in this world could have ever done this except Jesus Christ.

But there’s one other thing the Bible teaches us in this passage of scripture about the identity of Jesus, that Jesus was not only God, he was not only a man, but Jesus was also holy. It says here in verse 35,

The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

See, Jesus Christ is like us in every respect except one. He’s holy and we are not. That means ultimately that He did not commit a single sin. Jesus was holy in His thoughts. He was holy in His intentions. He was holy in His whole character. He was never drawn to sin. He had no propensity to sin at all whatsoever. And there has never been anybody else in human history about whom this could be said. Not then, not now, not ever. Everyone born since the first Adam was not born holy. And what was holy was not born until Jesus Christ came into the world.

See, Jesus blazes the trail of a new humanity that will be holy, free from sin, and no longer subject to death. That’s why when you get to the book of Revelation, what do you find out? When the curse is removed, there is no more crying. There’s no more death. There’s no more any of those things that bring sorrow in the world because Jesus has taken care of it. And that there also will be a new heaven and new earth where righteousness dwells. See, because Jesus is sinless and perfectly righteous, he is the only basis of our forgiveness with God the Father. Jesus is our only basis of righteousness before God. Faith in Christ alone, not our own goodness, saves us.

So then the angel communicated to Mary three important facts about Jesus’ identity. That He is God, that He is a man, and that He’s holy. And when we grasp these, we see that the whole purpose of the love of God was to redeem all of God’s children from the devil’s hell and take them to His wonderful heaven where she will bear a son. And you shall call His name Jesus, and He will save His people from their sin. That’s what we all need. No one will ever have to add or subtract to what Jesus has done to have eternal life. All they must do is to repent of their sins and unbelief and believe and receive His free gift of salvation.

And who are those who are saved from their sin? Anyone who comes to the God-man in repentance and faith. That’s what it says in Scripture. Repentance towards God the Father and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which was the plan for salvation. Anyone who calls upon Jesus from their heart of belief. As it says in Romans,

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

In other words, God wants you to ask Him to save you. Of course, that comes with understanding, understanding what He did on behalf of sinners. And then also anyone who is willing to forsake everything else they’re trusting in to hopefully save themselves. Like what? Like being religious, like good works, like morality, like keeping the sacraments, like thinking that you can keep the commandments when the commandments were never given to us to cause us to keep them, but show us that we’re sinners so we would call upon Christ.

See, when faith looks at the birth of Jesus, faith sees God at work and believes His promises. Faith sees this is why Christ came into the world. Faith reckons that if God has said Christ will save his people from their sins, then that’s exactly what He will do, and that’s exactly what He has done.

See, Jesus the Savior has transformed millions of alcoholics and drug addicts. Vile and profane persons have been made pure of speech. All manner of people have been changed by the amazing, wonderful grace of Jesus Christ who is God, who is a man, and who is holy. So we should be glad today that Jesus receives sinners, and we have many examples in scriptures that He did and still does receive sinners. All kinds of people caught in all various levels of condemning sin, He saves. Mary Magdalene possessed with seven demons, she becomes a believer. The maniac of Gadaria, the man possessed with legions of demons. He wore no clothes, he lived in tombs, he was in a sense insane. When he met Jesus, the devils departed, and he sat, the Bible says, clothed in his right mind and became a witness to the power of Christ in his region where he grew up. And we see from scripture that as he gave that testimony, that area became evangelized and many came to know the Lord because of his witness.

We have the Samaritan woman who was an adulterer, a sinner, married five times, and the man that she was living with when Jesus was talking to her wasn’t her husband. And what did she do? She hears the message of the gospel, she realizes who Jesus is, and what does she do? She believes and she gets saved. And then Lydia, just a regular businesswoman, what does she do? She hears the gospel, God opens her heart, and she repents and believes and she gets baptized.

See, no sinner is beyond the saving power of Jesus Christ. No homosexual, no harlot, no liar, no murderer, no religious person, no moral person, or ethical person, or religious self-righteous person, all of them can be saved. See, the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the one who receives sinners. He receives them to pardon them. He receives them to sanctify them. He receives them to forgive them and to make them fit for heaven, for His presence.

So why do we need to know what the angel Gabriel said to Mary? Because only God can reconcile sinful man to God, and only man can bear the punishment for man’s sin, and only the holy God-man can accomplish such a great salvation. That’s why. So if you know Jesus as your Savior this morning, worship Him. If you don’t know Him, ask Him to deliver you from your guilt, the power, and the consequences of your sin. Ask Him to pardon you, wash you in His own blood, and make you fit for His holy presence. Ask Him for that, because He’s able to do it. He’s willing to do it. He’s qualified to do it. And he’s the only one who can do it. Muhammad can’t do it. Buddha can’t do it. No religious leader in the world can do it. It’s only Christ who has done it and will do it if you ask Him to.

Now, if you don’t want to know Him or worship Him, then the Bible says you remain under the wrath and judgment of God. And if you remain that way and close your eyes in death, then your future is not going to be a pleasant one. It’s going to be separated from God.

But if you do know Jesus, your future, present and future, will be a glorious one. We will have a hope that we can’t even define. We will have a joy that’s inexpressible. We will be in the presence of a holy, righteous, perfect God, and we’ll be able to be there because of what Jesus did, not because of what you did. See, God takes the initiative. Salvation must come from heaven to the earth. It’s not the other way. And all God’s people said, Amen. God bless. Let’s stand together and let’s sing our last praise song. Merry Christmas to everyone.

December 25, 2022
Deliverance that Exalts the Lord Jesus Christ

In this sermon, our guest, Pastor Tom McConnell, examines Luke 8:29-39 and the account of Jesus delivering the man with the legion of demons. Pastor Tom explains two lessons about deliverance that should result in the exaltation of Jesus—even new belief in Jesus and new boldness for Jesus.

1. The Need for Jesus’ Deliverance (vv. 26-33)
2. The Responses to Jesus’ Deliverance (vv. 34-39)

Full Transcript:

Good morning, and it’s a delight to be with you at Calvary Community Church. I want to extend my sincere thanks to Pastor Babij and his wife Jayne for welcoming us to the area last night. Wonderful dinner we had together, and to the elders who have welcomed us and carved time out of your busy schedules to get to know us and visit with us. It’s a delight to be with you. Your church has an excellent reputation among those of us who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ overseas, and particularly those of us who are at Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, where my wife and I are missionaries for nearly 20 years in the United Kingdom. For many of you at the Sunday school hour, you heard about our missions work in the United Kingdom in Rugby, England. But for the rest of you who are just coming into the service this hour, we’d like to invite you at the end of the service to get a missionary prayer card at the back there and to sign up to receive our missionary newsletter so that you can pray intelligently for us. Our biggest need are the faithful prayers of believers who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ and will regularly pray for us, and the best way for you to do that is to receive our newsletter at the back after the service. So please do that. We’d love to talk with you more about our missionary work in the United Kingdom these last 20 years during our fellowship time, even after the breaking of bread, and I understand there’s a meal after the service. So all of you who’ll be staying back, we would love to meet you and tell you more about that ministry.

Well, on behalf of my wife, Kathy, and my children who are with us here today, we want to thank you for having us. I bring you greetings from my fellow elders in Rugby, England, at Grace Bible Church Rugby, who are five hours ahead of us, and they’ve already had their worship service and are into their afternoon. And so I want to make sure that I greet you on their behalf and in the Lord’s name. Our two nations have much on their minds, particularly today. Our two nations, the United Kingdom and America, are in many respects reeling emotionally, in many ways thinking about weighted matters. In the United Kingdom, you know we’ve had not only the change of a national leader and our prime minister, but we’ve had the death of a sovereign, a longstanding sovereign, in the death of our queen, and the nation is mourning the death of their beloved queen. And at the same time, 21 years after 9/11, America has not forgotten and continues to remember what happened 21 years ago here on 9/11.

And I couldn’t help but think that on such a day like this, that what would be a better antidote, what would be a better remedy for us than to draw hope and comfort from our Savior and from the gospel that our Savior came to bring to instill hope for eternal life, as we even celebrated the homegoing of these two believers who are now in the presence of God. And I want us to be able to be filled with hope today. I want us to be able to be comforted by our Savior, whether you’re remembering those lives lost on 9/11 or you’re thinking about a nation like the United Kingdom that is filled with uncertainty at the time of its change in its monarch.

I’d like to invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 8 this morning, to the passage that was read in Luke 8 this morning, as we consider the subject of deliverance. That word deliverance is a synonym for the word salvation. We’re gonna look at this subject deliverance or salvation, which is one of the greatest, if not the greatest theme of all of scripture, dominating the Bible from Genesis 3:15 to the end of the book of Revelation, or from the beginning and the end of the Bible.

This subject of deliverance in Luke’s gospel focuses on the deliverer first, that is Jesus, and secondly focuses on those who need deliverance – all sorts of people as you read through the gospel of Luke. You’re gonna see Jesus as the deliverer and you’re going to see multitudes of different people in varying needs needing to be delivered. Or if I could say it so bluntly, be saved, which is also a synonym for deliverance, so is translated from the Greek to be deliverer or to save. And in Luke’s gospel, the gospel of Luke, Luke wants Theophilus, the young believer to whom he wrote the gospel of Luke, to understand that Jesus is not just a man, but that Jesus is the powerful fulfillment, divine fulfillment of Daniel 7:13-14. He’s the Son of man who’s coming before the ancient of days. And Jesus’s dominion is going to be, as Daniel records in Daniel 7:13-14, an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away. In other words, if he’s a man and only a man, certainly his rule will end at the end of his days. But if He’s more than a man, if Jesus is man and if he’s God, who’s taken on the nature of a man in His incarnation, then His kingdom will have no end. And that’s what Daniel prophesied in the Old Testament. And that’s what Jesus is presented by Luke as being the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in the gospel of Luke.

It is here as you open your Bibles to Luke 8 this morning that we find ourselves in the midst of Luke writing about the life of Jesus. And at this particular occasion in Luke 8, before we even get to our text, the preceding narrative or the preceding text, not even Jesus’s disciples yet understood who Jesus is to this very point. If you look down in verses 22 to 25, there’s that great narrative historical event of Jesus calming the sea. And Jesus and His disciples in those verses get into a boat on the Sea of Galilee and they set sail. And as they set sail, Jesus falls asleep in the boat. Verse 23 tells us that a windstorm came down on the lake and the boat started taking on water to such a degree that the disciples woke Jesus up from His sleep in verse 24 saying, Master, Master, we are perishing. Jesus, disturbed from His sleep, displayed His divinity to His disciples in the most disturbing way, at least to His disciples. According to the parallel passage in Mark 4:39, Jesus gets up, looks up and speaks up, speaking to the winds in the sea. Jesus hushed the winds in the sea saying, Peace, be still. And suddenly the once storm-tossed Sea of Galilee became Lake Placid.

Do you remember how Jesus’s hush of nature impacted the disciples in the boat that day? Well, Matthew 8:27 tells us that His disciples marveled saying, What sort of man is this that even the winds and sea obey Him? Mark 4:41 tells us that His disciples were filled with mega phobia or great fear. Luke 8:25 includes the mingling of fear and marveling as the disciples respond to Jesus’s demonstration of his power over the forces of nature. You see, the disciples who were working closely with Jesus, whom Jesus had called, did not even fully recognize yet that He is not just man, but He is divine God, the son of the living God. But they got to see His power over the forces of nature in those few verses, verses 22 and 25.

But in our text this morning, those verses that succeed those verses, they’re not only gonna see Jesus’s power over the forces of nature, but they’re going to see Jesus’s power as God over the forces of darkness. And in Luke 8:26-39, Jesus demonstrates His power over the forces of darkness by delivering a man who was completely and totally in the grip of demonic darkness. Luke’s account of this man’s deliverance can be divided into two parts, from which I’ll draw two lessons about deliverance. So if you’re taking notes, and I recommend that you do, and I trust many of you already are, two lessons about deliverance that should result in the exaltation of Jesus. This is what I hope we will see.

And what I hope is accomplished in God’s word could be, and my own personal desire would be, number one, so that those of you who have not yet repented of your sins and believed savingly on the Lord Jesus Christ would look to Him and Him alone for your deliverance. You need to be delivered if you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And I don’t just mean about facts about Jesus, but I mean resting and trusting entirely in Jesus and Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins.

And secondly, for those of us who know and love Christ, as we look at this gospel narrative, my desire is that you’ll be more bold and more courageous and more filled with zeal to make His name great among the nations, so that from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, His name will be made great by you and others like us. His name will be made great among the nations. So these two lessons about deliverance deliverance with these two human goals. Obviously, we know Isaiah 55:11 says that the Lord’s word will not return void, but He’ll accomplish His own purposes with it. I’m sure that the Lord will have other dealings other than these two that I’ve just mentioned. But these two lessons about deliverance are easy to remember.

Here are the two heads, as they would say in Britain, or the two main points. Sorry, there’s not three main points today, Pastor, but it’s just the way it’s unfolded in the text, as I can see it. There’s verses 27 through 33. There is a need for Jesus’s deliverance. And verses 34 through 39, I’ve summarized it as being there is a response or there are responses to Jesus’s deliverance. The need and the responses, those are the two heads as this narrative breaks down for us.

The first lesson to learn about Jesus’s deliverance is there’s a need for it. There’s a need for the deliverance that Jesus brings, even as we’ll see here in the narrative. But there’s a need for the deliverance that Jesus brings today. There’s a need for Jesus’s deliverance. And there are two details about this man as we read of him, this man that proved to us that he needs deliverance. These two details could be described this way. First, there’s the man’s description argues that this man needs deliverance.

This man is described in five ways. His local origin in verse 27 is being a man from the city. Secondly, his spiritual condition noted there in the same verse that he was a man who was, as it says in the NAS, who was possessed by demons. Second description, his spiritual condition. Who are these demons that Jesus is facing when we think about this man’s spiritual condition? Well, in Matthew chapter 8:28, this man is described as a demon-possessed man, a man of unclean spirit in Mark. And he is said to be possessed by these. These demons are corrupt spiritual beings. They’re called by various names and descriptions throughout the scripture, like, for example, familiar spirits in Leviticus 20:6, unclean spirits in Acts 5:16. They’re called principalities. They’re called wicked rulers of this present darkness, wicked rulers and authority in Ephesians 6:12 and Colossians 2:15.

And according to scripture, demons are fallen angels who followed Satan in rebellion against God, say, for example, as mentioned in Revelation 11:4. They were cursed by God and cast out of heaven. And many of these wicked, rebellious, unclean spirits, God had committed to be reserved in chains of darkness until the final judgment. We read about that, that those who rebelled with Satan and were kicked out of heaven, 2 Peter 2:4 said that,

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

And Jude 6 says,

And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

The point is this, that many of those angels now who have fallen or called demons now that were kicked out of heaven are reserved in chains of gloomy darkness even till now. They are not the ones who are hindering the work of God, are attacking the work of God in the present day or in the time of Christ here. But there are other demons who were not reserved in gloomy chains of darkness who were going about wreaking havoc and seeking to kill the image of God in man, the Imago Dei. And they sought to destroy man and prevent man from coming to know the God, the one and only true God who would save them from their sins. You need to understand that many of these demons were permitted to move on the earth as we clearly see in this passage here in Luke 8. And in other gospel passages throughout the New Testament.

And I must say it this way just before we leave who these demons are. I must remind you many of you know about Adam and Eve and Satan in the garden and the temptation in the fall. And now many of you know about the rebellious angels, some who are reserved in darkness and some who are wreaking havoc and trying to make a living hell for those who are made in the image of God on earth and prevent them from believing the gospel. You need to know that while God provides redemption for sinful humanity, those of us who are human beings, of which we are part, God has sealed the sinful state of these rebel spirits forever. You need to understand this, that when the spiritual realm of darkness comes into contact with fallen sinful humanity, they are both depraved, they are both under God’s judgment, they are both rebels against God, but one of those beings, one of those people has hope for their sins forgiven, but the other has no hope. They are eternally lost. They are eternally separated from God and nothing we read of in the scripture says that there’s any remedy or redemption for those fallen angels. They are sealed for the day of judgment. You need to see how important not man is in general, but the kind of love that God has set on those made in His image, that is human beings, men and women made in the image of God.

Ebenezer Pemberton, not far from here, preached the ordination ministry of David Brainerd, and he goes on to say that this present world that we live in, we once enjoyed the favor of God, but sin defaced the beauty of creation and caused the Lord of this lower world, man, to grieve the most disconsolate circumstances. God looked at our deplorable state. Infinite wisdom touched the heart of the Father of mercies and infinite wisdom laid the plan for our recovery, that is, redemption. And God has not made such a plan for the fallen angels. And I dare say, we would risk a greater judgment because God has provided a way for you to be saved, for humanity to be saved. And if you continue to reject the Lord Jesus Christ, you will have to stand before a God who sent His only Son into the world that whoever believed in Him might not perish, but have eternal life. You are that much more culpable. And you are responsible, as Paul says in Romans, you are without excuse.

Number three, his description, his physical description of being destitute and desperate. It says in the text that this man had not put on any clothing, and for a long time, can you see the scene of this destitute man who is in desperate circumstances? The fourth description of his current residence, not living in a house, notice the negative, but in the tombs, according to NASB. He is described as coming out of the tombs or dwelling among the tombs. This is his place of residency among the dead. And then finally, his fifth description is his length of captivity to darkness. Only Luke’s gospel tells us the length of time in which he was caught by the power of darkness and held by it. But what Luke does record, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that it was for a long time. He had worn no clothes for a long time. He had not lived in a house for a long time. He was under the power of sin and darkness for a long time. And this man’s description, his five-fold description, argues or proves that this man is in desperate need of deliverance that Jesus and Jesus Christ alone can provide.

However, there’s a second detail which proves this man’s need of deliverance, and it’s the man’s recognition of Jesus. We not only know that he needs deliverance because of his description, but we know he needs deliverance because of his recognition of Jesus, and I want to explain what I mean by that from this text. First of all, without an introduction, as the text says in verses 27 and 28, without an introduction, the man knew Jesus’s name. Do you see that?

And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons; and who had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs. Seeing Jesus, he cried out and fell before Him, and said in a loud voice, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus,”

Without any introduction, this man knew Jesus’s name. Let me hasten to add that the meeting took place, this meeting between Jesus and this man, took place too soon for an introduction. The NAS says when he had come out onto land, but the parallel passage in Mark 5:2 uses the word immediately. That’s a helpful adverb in the text. Immediately, as Jesus steps out of the boat, this meeting between this man and Jesus, before any introductions are given, takes place. It was too soon for an introduction.

And notice, secondly, that this meeting was too intense for introduction. Matthew 8:28 talk about two demoniacs at this particular occasion, and Luke’s gospel focuses, most scholars believe, on the ringleader of the two or the leader of the two. So Luke is talking about what has got the lens of the gospel focused on one of those two demoniacs. But Matthew 8:28 tells us that they were so fierce that no one could pass that way. That’s why I say the meeting between Jesus and this man was too sudden or it was too soon and it was too tense. No one could pass by this way.

Acts 19:14-16 tell us what the power of one demon can do in a man. You remember the seven sons of Sceva, the Jewish high priest named Sceva. What they were doing, they were casting out demons using the name of Jesus, although not believing on the name of Jesus, not being followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. But they were casting out evil spirits in the name of Jesus, the powerful name of Jesus. And then that one evil spirit answered them saying, Jesus, I know, and Paul, I recognize, but who are you guys? And the scripture says,

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

I say to you, this was an intense moment that was happening right before Jesus and His disciples and those who were privy to be there. And despite the intensity of the moment and despite the speed of the confrontation, this man knew Jesus’ name. What business do we have to do with each other, Jesus? Isn’t that interesting? It’s so obvious, we might miss it. You remember what the name Jesus means, right? We talk about it every Christmas, right? And there shall be a son born to you and you shall call His name Jesus for He will what? He will save, He will deliver His people from their sin. And we know that Jesus is the New Testament equivalent of Yahoshua in the Old Testament, which means Yahweh delivers, Yahweh saves. That’s what Jesus’ name means. It means Yahweh delivers.

Do you get the picture here? Here is this man in need of deliverance saying to the one that who is the Creator of the ends of the earth, what have we to do with You, Yahweh delivers? Do you get it? The man recognizes, the man who needs deliverance is not asking Jesus to deliver him. In fact, it’s like he wants Jesus, the deliverer, to go away from him. And you’ll understand why, because it says that he was possessed by these demons. The man who needed deliverance was in the presence of the one and only person who could bring him deliverance, but he was saying, I don’t want anything to do with You, Yahweh saves, Yahweh delivers. No introductions were possible. No introductions were necessary because the man knew Jesus’ name.

So, without an introduction, the man knew Jesus’ name, but secondly, without explanation, the man knew Jesus’ true identity. In verse 28, what have we to do with you, Jesus, listen, son of the most high God? That brings us back to Daniel 7:13-14, doesn’t it? Jesus is not only the Son of man, as you’ll see in Luke’s gospel, but He’s the Son of man not only to speak of His humanity, but of prophecy that speaks about His eternality, His divinity. They know who Jesus is greater than so many of us think we know who Jesus is. They have a better Christology than we have, these demons. They have an accurate understanding of who Jesus is.

I must tell you this for your own good, that having an accurate understanding of who Jesus is alone by itself is not enough to save you. You need to understand that you may have heard about Jesus as a child. You may have been taught the Sunday school data about the gospel as a child. You may assent that the data of the gospel is true, and if that describes you fully and wholeheartedly in only those two things, the data of the gospel and assenting that the gospel is true, you’re still lost and in sin’s grip because without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to God must first believe that He is and that He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

You see, without fiducia or fiducia, without that whole soul resting entirely in Christ, and here’s the Reformed word, sola, Christ alone. It’s not Jesus plus Mary or Jesus plus the church or Jesus plus your money or Jesus plus your good works. It’s Christ alone resting in Him, and I’m not just talking about believing in Jesus the same way do you believe in the Queen Mother or you believe in King Charles as a historical figure. Because certainly when we say, have you believed in Jesus? We’re not just talking about just knowing that He is an accurate and actual historical figure who’s alive forevermore. Certainly He’s that.

No, to believe is not just to give assent that He’s historical. To believe is to take all that He said He is and all that He came to do in dying a death you and I could not die and living a life that you and I could not live, being put in a tomb three days later, rising again from the tomb in victory over sin, death, and hell for our justification. To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not just to believe that He exists, but it means to rest entirely and only in Him for the forgiveness of your sins. He and He alone. We are not saved by a doctrine. We are saved by a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. I have no hope but Christ. I have no hope of getting into heaven or having my sins forgiven except He said, believe on Him. To as many as received Him, that means by faith to believe on Him, to those people He gave the right to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name.

You may say I believe Jesus is who he says he is, and I believe Jesus is the son of the most high God. James 2:19 tells us even the demons believe that, and they shudder. As one preacher commenting on James 2:19 rightly said, if you think you’re saved only because you believe correct things about Jesus, all that does is qualify you to be a demon. Demons know Jesus, but saved human beings put their entire faith and trust in Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins.

So, without an introduction, this man knows Jesus’ name, and without an explanation he knows Jesus’ true identity, but thirdly, without hesitation, the man knew Jesus’ power. Do you see in verse 28 what he says? Look at the text. In falling down, he says,

“What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.”

Now, that’s an incredible, unexpected change in the text. Especially when you are reading Mark’s gospel that no one can pass by because these guys are running and driving everyone off, and here comes meek and gentle Jesus just landing on the shore, and rather than Him being terrified of this man and his partner, they are terrified of Him. Do you see it? I beg you, do not torment me. Firstly, the thought of Jesus tormenting anyone is antithetical to most people’s thinking today about Jesus. Don’t torment me, Jesus.

I mean, what’s the picture of Jesus that you have? The picture of Jesus that many people have is the flannelgraph Jesus. Now, I’ve immediately given away my age by saying that. Most of you younger folks don’t know what a flannelgraph is just like you don’t know what a broken record is, but that’s another story, isn’t it? For those of us 52 years and older, 52 years young and older, you know what a flannelgraph is and you know what a broken record is, so you’ve been enlightened. But the thought of Jesus tormenting anyone, just look at those words that this man says. I mean, have you thought about that? It’s worthy of your meditation this afternoon. I beg you, do not torment me. I mean, what kind of Jesus is this man identifying?

Well, this man without hesitation knew Jesus’s power. You see, he knew Jesus’s divine name. He knew who Jesus is, more than just doctrine. He knew and knows God’s power, Jesus’s power. Gentle and soft flannelgraph picture that most people have of Jesus is not the one that he’s talking to, do not torment me. Have you come to torment me? There’s another striking matter to emphasize, and that is this powerful demon-possessed man who’s driving other people away, as I’ve already said, he is bowing down in the presence of this otherwise meek and gentle Jesus.

You see, here is divine power that’s not flaunting itself. He doesn’t need to brag. He doesn’t need to say, don’t you know who I am? No, when He’s God, because He is God, He knows who He is. He’s not having an identity crisis. He’s not trying to reinvent Himself. He’s not trying to figure out, am I God or am I not God? I know I’m human, but am I God? He’s not having an identity crisis. And those other people who were driven away by this demoniac and his partner, they weren’t God. They were human beings like the rest of us, but there was something different about Jesus because Jesus is not only man, but He’s God. He’s the Son of the Most High. The same deity of God, very God, very God. And this demon is in the presence of the one he knows that created him. And this man in whom the demons were residing.

What’s striking here is that Mark 5:4 says that no one was strong enough to subdue him, but here comes this powerful man cowering before the gentle and lowly, the meek and gentle Jesus. That’s my Savior. The all-powerful. The one who not only exercises His power over the forces of nature, but the one before whom those rebellious spirits called demons come groveling and begging.

Do you see the word begging? Begging Him not to throw them into the abyss. That’s the word begging. It’s the word demai. It’s the word translated used by a man full of leprosy begging Jesus to heal him in Luke 5:12. And it’s used, this word to beg is used by other desperate human beings. Do you see the desperation of this man? It’s not like he wants to follow Jesus. He just doesn’t want to be tormented by Jesus because he knows Jesus, if anyone, has the power to torment this man and those who are residing in him, those evil spirits, it’s Jesus. In Luke 8:31, they begged him, that’s the word parakaleo, to make a strong request, to implore. In verse 32, they begged him. Here they are. They can’t trip over themselves enough saying, please, please, please, please. Their begging indicates they knew the power of Jesus.

Secondly, when they mentioned tormenting, have you come to torment us? Do not torment me. In Matthew 8:29, the demons asked Jesus, have you come here to torment us before the time? Oh, you know what I love about that, is they know, they have an accurate understanding of prophecy. Their eschatology is spot on. That’s how the Brits say it, spot on. And as a British missionary, I’ve got to weave in a few words so we can be bilingual before the end of the sermon. You know their eschatology was right on. They know that there’s coming a day for judgment for the whole fallen gamut of those angels who have rebelled against God. And why is it that the demons know that there is a coming, a final day of judgment, but humanity will say rightly in their own pride, no, God’s going to let me in. There’s no day of judgment coming for me. Stop deceiving yourselves. There’s a day of judgment for all who have rebelled against God, and all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You need to line up and at least have this recognition that there is appointed unto you a time once to die, and after this, the judgment. You’re not going to escape it, just like these demons know they’re not going to escape it. Have you come to torment us before the time?

Torment is the Greek word that means to subject to severe distress, to subject to punitive judicial procedure. It’s used in Matthew 14:24, this same word, torment, as a boat battered by the winds, that banging of the water sloshing against the wood that consists. He had just come out of the storm. Remember in the previous context, that boat had been battered. That is a picture of the torment that they’re talking about here. There’s going to be a judgment that is felt keenly and personally by these evil spirits and also by all the unredeemed of those who have not bowed the knee to Jesus in this life. Don’t send me to the abyss. That’s the bottomless pit. Revelation 9:1-12 tell us that it’s the abode of evil beings. Revelation 17:8 says it’s the place from which the beast who bears the harlot arises, and it’s the location of Satan’s confinement for a thousand years in Revelation 20:1-3. It’s called the abyss.

One commentator said it’s used in Jewish, pagan, and Christian literature, this term abyss. It has the common idea of an immense and terrifying place, and that is exactly the future for those fallen angels, and that is exactly the future for everyone who enters into eternity without having called on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in a saving way. There is coming a day of judgment, my friends, and God’s not going to skip over you and say, all right, well, you were going to let in, but we’re going to judge everyone else righteously. God wouldn’t be a righteous God to skip over you. There’s coming a judgment.

And do you see the irony here? We beg you. I beg you. Do not torment me. What’s the irony here? The irony is that the demon man begs Jesus not to do what the demons are doing to this man. Lord Jesus, don’t do to us, the demons inside of him, what we’re doing to this man, and may I add, for a long time. They wanted a mercy and a grace that they weren’t giving to this man. There’s a bit of irony here, isn’t there?

And I must say that this is where we can get pedantic, but this is why we go to seminary, isn’t it, Pastor, where we notice the details in the text. Do you see the switch, the interplay between the singular and the plural? Verse 28, he saw Jesus. What have you to do with me? Verse 28, I beg you, do not torment me, the unclean spirit, it had seized him, driven out by the demons. Seven times the singular is used, but Luke is about to show us something that Jesus knows that Luke hasn’t yet revealed. Do you see the plural in verse 31? They begged him, verse 32, they begged him, verse 33, the demons, the verse 35, the demons. You see the interplay between the singular and the plural is important here. It’s important because here we see that there’s a change between the singular and plural because of the often overlooked fact that we can’t just see in the straightforward reading of Luke. I mean, the way Luke describes the scene is here is Jesus, maybe His disciples are behind Him, and here is this one man falling down at His face saying, have you come to torment me? This man who’s driven off many others.

So when you read the Gospel of Luke up until this point, it’s mano y mano from the straight reading of the Gospel, one on one. And that’s what it looks like until we read the question in verse 30. Jesus asked him, what is your name? And now if Jesus is God and He knows everything, does he lack information? No, He doesn’t. No, you can say it. You can talk to me. You can say it. Does he lack information? No, so He’s asking a question. Is it for His benefit? No, it’s for our benefit. It’s for us to clearly see what Jesus saw before Him. If He didn’t ask the question, it would be harder to see, maybe not impossible. It’s kind of like when He said, what is your name? And the demons inside of this man said, legion, for many demons had entered him.

It’s kind of like you finally get the picture. You remember that great picture in 2 Kings 6:14-17, where the king of Syria comes against Elijah or Elisha and his servant, and they surround him, the prophet and the prophet’s assistant said, hey boss, there’s all these chariots surrounding the city. We’re in trouble here. And the prophet prayed, God, open his eyes that he may clearly see. And God opened the eyes of the prophet’s servant so that he can see all the fiery chariots around. He was able to see for the first time reality. I mean, the world as it really is taking place. We can only see the physical world, but there is a spiritual world that’s coexisting.

And when Jesus asked the question back in Luke 8, what is your name? He’s trying to help Luke and the Holy Spirit are trying to help us see what Jesus was seeing, the world as it really is. It’s Jesus versus thousands. Now, the demon possessed man said legion for we’re many. Now in the time of Caesar Augustus, a legion was a Roman name given to a group of 6,000 soldiers. Legion. Now, I don’t know if in the ranks of the damned, the fallen angels, if a Roman legion of 6,000 is the same as a demonic legion. But even if we cut it in half, even if there’s only 3,000 of them, it’s Jesus versus 3,000. That’s the real picture. That’s the real picture.

Yet understanding all of this, my friends, there was no fair fight. That’s my favorite line in the whole sermon. There was no fair fight. One, 3,000 against one. No, it’s because of the One. It’s the power of the One. You see, 3,000 against the One who created them, those angelic beings who had fallen, they don’t stand a chance, as if there’s any such thing as chance.

So without introduction, the man knew Jesus’s name. Without explanation, the man knew Jesus’s true identity. And without hesitation, the man knew Jesus’s divine power. What happens when a smaller army, they’re vastly outnumbered by a greater army? What does that smaller army do? Well, the Bible says they sue for peace. And that’s exactly what these 3,000 or 6,000 demons were doing, these legion of demons were doing. You see, the goal of this narrative is to demonstrate, as best as I understand it, that Jesus has power over the forces of not only nature, but Jesus has power over the forces of darkness, that He is the Son of Man, He is the Son of Man and the Son of God.

And you might say, I could see that truth, but how might this apply to me? How might this biblical truth that Jesus has power over the forces of darkness affect me and apply to my life? I mean, it would be easy to say Jesus has power over demons and a demon-possessed man, but since I’m not a demon-possessed person, what does this passage have to do with me? Well, let me entertain just a few questions in the final 13 minutes that we have together. My question for you to consider is, how are all unbelievers like this demon-possessed man? Well, Romans 6 says that all unbelievers are enslaved to sin, like this man. Remember, he was bound with chains. 2 Timothy 2:26 says that all unbelievers are held captive by Satan to do his will, and certainly this man was being held by the emissaries of Satan, these demons, to do his will. Colossians 1:13 says that all of us, before we are saved, are held within the domain of darkness, where the Father transfers us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved Son when we’re saved. And all unbelievers, that is every one of us who are even saved now, this was our past. This is who we used to be. This was the enslavement that existed before the Lord saved us.

And all unbelievers are Satan’s offspring, are children of the devil before salvation. Genesis 3:15 says Satan has an offspring. John 8:44, Jesus will say to them, you are of your father, the devil. Ephesians 5:8, Paul writes to the church at Ephesus saying, you once were darkness, but now you are children of the light. No family or nearby friends can help this man under the power of darkness. No man, no family member can deliver this man. Acts 4:12 says there’s salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be delivered, the name of Jesus.

Humanity today needs deliverance that only Jesus brings, but you see, most of humanity doesn’t believe that they need a savior, need deliverance. They don’t see the spiritual darkness that we live in. One of the hardest things to do in evangelism is to convince people that they’re actually a sinner and under the wrath of God, and they actually need salvation or need deliverance. Hey, would you consider yourself to be a good person? Well, yes, I am. And then we listen for ad infinitum about how good of a person they are when Jesus said, I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Those who are well or healthy spiritually in their own mind, he’s using sarcasm here, do not need a physician. Only those who realize their desperation, their desperate condition, and you can realize that only through the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit making you aware of that. Salvation is of the Lord.

Let me hasten to add that not only is deliverance that Jesus can bring, but the deliverance that Jesus does bring. Dare I add that He does bring this kind of deliverance in Somerset, New Jersey? Dare I add that He brings deliverance in Mine Hill, New Jersey, and Rockaway, New Jersey, and Roxbury, New Jersey, and Succasunna, and Ledgewood, New Jersey, and Mount Olive, New Jersey, and Randolph, New Jersey, Tom’s River, New Jersey, Ocean County, Ocean City, Morris County? He’s still saving His remnant, His people, His elect people. It’s not just that Jesus can deliver, He is delivering. The day of grace is not over. And my dear friends, how long are you going to turn away from the offer of eternal life that Jesus Christ has came to make to you so that you would understand that you are a sinner in need of His salvation? How long are you going to continually turn away from that offer of hope in life?

We’re not going to add to the number of God’s elect, but I don’t know which one of you are elect this morning. You need to all hear, you need to all believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know, when Paul said, I do all things for the sake of those who are chosen, he was in prison when he wrote those words. And he knew that God had His people He was going to save.

You are more responsible now to know Christ today, because you saw His power over the forces of nature, but now you need to see the second lesson about deliverance, and that’s there’s a response or responses to Jesus’ deliverance. I have a big porch with my sermons. I tend to have a big porch and a small house. So don’t be afraid. This second point is like really short. Steve Lawson would just tear me up, but that’s a big porch you have there, Tom.

The second lesson to learn about deliverance is that there’s responses to deliverance. Do you see the responses of the herdsmen in verse 34? Now, when the herdsmen saw what had happened, they ran away. They had a twofold response. They ran. That meant they sought safety in flight. To become safe from danger by eluding it or avoiding it is the lexicon definition of running away. They were terrified. And they not only ran, but second response of the herdsmen is they told it. This is the word to make known publicly, to proclaim it. They went into the city, verses 27 and 39. This is where the man grew up and his family’s current location, as we’ll find out later. And they went into the country.

Do you notice the second response was found in verse 35 of the response of the people of the city. First of all, they were curious. They wanted to see what happened. Second, in verse 37, they do the unthinkable. They asked Jesus to depart. Here, Yahweh delivers, delivers a man who needed deliverance and no one else could even chain him successfully. But rather than welcoming Jesus with open arms, they’re terrified, the herdsmen are terrified. Maybe it’s because they lost their prophet. No, I think the text is clear. It says that they’re terrified because of what happens when they see the man clothed and sitting, clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. They are terrified because they know, they know the power of Jesus. But they ask Jesus to depart.

That’s what so many unbelievers do when you share the gospel with them. Away with this Jesus. He might be able to save other people, but I’m gonna get there my own way. If I have to pick the locks of heaven to get in, I am gonna get in. Oh no, you’re not. Piper puts it this way. When he responds to the people asking Jesus to depart, Piper says, quote, oh my goodness, that’s Piper. The great liberator has come and they tell him to get out. Piper goes on to say, to our utter amazement, they beg Jesus, the life giver, the devil defeater, the hope maker and the hope giver to leave their region, close quote. It’s unthinkable.

But thirdly, do you see the response of the people? Verse 35, it says they were afraid. And my friends, only Luke’s account tells us the reason for their request of telling Jesus to please go away. For it says, for they were seized with great fear. Now that word fear, there are two kinds of fear of the Lord. There’s the fear of terror. That’s the demon’s fear and sinner’s fear of God. And there’s the fear of reverence. And that comes from those of us who know and love Christ. We bring the fear of God, the fear of the Lord. We walk in the fear of God. It’s the beginning of wisdom. We reverence Him. But this is the fear of terror because they’re not the Lord’s. They’re sinners who have not repented.

And do you see the final response? This is my favorite. I said I had a favorite sentence, but this is my favorite sub point in the outline. Do you see the third response? It’s the man who had been delivered. It’s the man who had been delivered. Now, I’m not trying to take this narrative. This narrative is about Jesus’s power over the forces of darkness. It’s not about us. But it applies to us. I’ve tried to show you that in almost every way that the man who was in bondage to those demons, aside from being actually possessed, we can, in spiritual sense, there’s an analogy in which we were in so much bondage. We’re just like him.

I’ve been studying biblical counseling, and that’s really the application of the sufficient word of God. And I read a book that offended me that as you deal with people with addiction, the book was not how to help people in addiction from a better place. The book was arguing that I’m an addict. And when I read that, I said, I’m a minister of the gospel. I’m not an addict. Oh, yes, I am. And oh, yes, you are. We’re all sinners by nature, even though we’re saved. We have that sin that does so easily beset us, Hebrews talks about. So we’re not talking about bringing the gospel to addicts from a superior position. We’re talking about bringing the hope to addicts as a fellow addict of sin. There’s hope in the gospel and power in the gospel.

This man, do you see, until you come to see yourself as believers more like this man who’s been delivered, you’re going to have a higher view of yourself than you probably should. Do you notice this man’s location, verse 35? Where is he located? He’s sitting at the feet of Jesus. That’s a great place for those who’ve been delivered from darkness to sit. Do you see his twofold change in his condition, verse 35? There’s the external change. He’s clothed. Previously, he’s unclothed. And do you see the internal change? He’s in his right mind. You know, the gospel changes our thinking. It changes us from the inside out. The gospel is not behavior modification. It’s heart transformation. Thirdly, do you see his petition in verse 38? The man who was delivered, at one time he begged. At one time he said, Jesus, what have we to do with you? In other words, go away from me. I don’t want anything to do with you. But here in verse 38, he begs that he might be with Jesus. Because people who have been delivered by Jesus want to be with Jesus.

Before I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ in a saving way, my mom is here today, and she can witness this. I hated going to church. They forced me to go to church. Mom, you forced me to go to church. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for forcing me to go to church that preached the gospel. But I have to say, I thought it was the most boring stuff in the world. I didn’t want any of that dribble. I just wanted the sweets that they used to bribe you to memorize memory verses. That’s all I wanted. Maybe to have a little bit of fun. But then when the Lord saved me, I couldn’t get enough of His word. My whole life needed to change. It was no longer about myself. It was about Him. How am I not going to go back that way into darkness from which the Lord had taken me? How am I going to live this life just as a young man without a dad? How am I going to live this life for the glory of God?

Well, do you see? He begs Jesus that he might be with him. Do you see the contrast between the man at the beginning and the end? And do you see the contrast of the unbelieving townspeople and herdsmen? There’s a contrast between all of those who have not believed in Jesus and this man who had been delivered. So if you’ve been delivered, make it your goal and aim to be with Jesus. To be with Christ. You want to be with Him. Some of you feel like you’ve been left behind. You’ve not been left behind.

It’s this last point. Do you see the declaration in verse 39? It’s the deity of Jesus Christ found here. Jesus says to the man, No, don’t come with me, but go into the city and declare how much God has done for you. Do you know how the man interpreted Jesus’ saying? How much God has done for you? So this man went away through the whole city telling how much Jesus had done for him. What did the man understand? Jesus is God. Jesus told him, Tell all that God has done for you. And this man said, Do you see what Jesus, God, Jesus’ God has done for me? Do you see his declaration? This word keruso, it’s where we get the word proclaiming or preaching. How much? That refers to the details of what the Lord has done for him.

And while this narrative is about Jesus’ power over the forces of darkness, humanity is as in bondage to sin as this man was in bondage to those thousands of demons and just as powerless to deliver themselves. There is still a need all over Somerset and this world, the United Kingdom, for the deliverance that only Jesus Christ can bring. I ask you, those of you who’ve been delivered, those of you who have already experienced the Lord Jesus Christ’s salvation, what ought to be your response to His deliverance? I contend in advance to you, you ought to do and follow the instructions that Jesus gave to this man and start by going back to your own family and tell them what all that Jesus has done for you and make Him great among the nations and in your family and in the town and at your jobs all that Jesus has done for you.

Do you see that Jesus didn’t permit the man to go with him on Jesus’ onward journey? Yes, the townspeople and the people of the city begged Jesus to depart and He does, but not without leaving them one delivered man to witness in the city. It sounds like the woman of Samaria. You save one person and it led to a great revival in a place. You’ve not been left behind. You’ve been sent if you’ve been delivered to tell people about Jesus Christ and I implore you to turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone for your own deliverance if you have never bowed the knee and if you have, make His name known. You’ve been delivered. You’ve been saved. This passage speaks of a deliverance that results in thanksgiving and that is a deliverance that exalts the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we want to thank You for Your Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus, we thank You that You were not just concerned about our lost condition, but You left the glories of heaven to come to this sinful world to bring about the atonement that You brought about so that You will save a people for Your own possession, zealous for good deeds from every tongue, tribe, language, and nation. Lord, great is Your faithfulness. Your mercies and Your grace cause us to bow in awe. Lord, we thank You that You delivered this man. We thank You, every one of us, Lord, whom You’ve delivered through the gospel. Who are we that You should save us and shed Your love on us? We are overwhelmed by Your mercy and by Your goodness and grace. And Lord, in a few moments, as we come to remember Your atoning death for us, those who believe, Lord, we pray that You would receive our thanks and our praise and be honored and glorified. In Jesus’ name we pray these things, amen.

September 12, 2022
One Thing Is Necessary

In this special Mother’s Day sermon, Pastor Dave Capoccia examines the short account about Mary, Martha, and Jesus in Luke 10:38-42. Christ teaches in this passage a simple but critical truth about following him: devoted discipleship comes before happy service. As Pastor Dave preaches through the text, he identifies three highlighted characters who underscore the passage’s main message.

1. The Devoted Disciple (vv. 38-39)
2. The Unhappy Servant (v. 40)
3. The Compassionate Teacher (vv. 41-42)

Full Transcript:

Happy Mother’s Day! We are pausing today in our regular Ecclesiastes and 2 Peter preaching to bring you a special mother’s day message. But of course there will be spiritual food for all of us today, mother or not.

Our text is short but important for each of us to hear and take to heart. We’re going to read the text and then I will pray and proceed through the sermon. Please turn in your Bibles to Luke 10:38-42:

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Let’s pray. Lord open Your Word to us this day and teach us Lord Christ. May I be Your mouth piece so that I can explain clearly Your Word. Spirit work in the hearts so that we are transformed. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Even though it is Mother’s Day, I’m going to risk opening this sermon from a traditionally masculine field: sports. One of the greatest American football coaches ever was Vince Lombardi who coached the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s, and also a coach briefly for the Redskins. He led his teams to winning records every season and to five championship wins in subsequent years, including the first two Super Bowl victories ever.

Even today the trophy given to the winning team at the Super Bowl is named after this coach. What made Vince Lombardi so great and a success? Surprisingly, it is not brilliant strategy or new and unconventional techniques. Rather, it was a commitment to mastering the fundamentals. In just his second season as the Packers coach, Lombardi led his team to victory in the 1960 championship game against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Packers were playing well in the game and were winning going into the fourth quarter, but then they lost in the final few minutes because they just couldn’t score even though they were a few yards away from the end zone. It was a demoralizing defeat! To be so close but still to fail. What went wrong? How would the team pick up the pieces again for the next year?

When summer training camp came around, Coach Lombardi’s idea was to get back to basics. He decided to make no assumptions about what the players knew or remembered from the previous year and he famously began the trading camp with these words after holding up a certain object: “Gentlemen, this is a football.” Lombardi trained his team with this mindset. He went over with each player how to block, how to tackle, etc. He went back to page one in the playbook to make sure each player knew they were supposed to do in the plays the team would execute.

Some of the players initially found this approach amusing but as the training camp proceeded, the team began to excel more and more in all of the little skills that other teams around the league took for granted. The reorientation paid off for in the 1961 season, not only did the Packers make it to the championship game again, but this time they won it: 37-0.

Now I bring up Vince Lombardi this morning because this back to basics mindset is very important for us as Christians. After all, we also face many difficulties and frustrations and even defeats in the Christian life. We sometimes ask ourselves: why we always feel so stressed, angry, and worried, even when we try to serve God? Why do we seem to keep yielding to the same sins again and again and why does our love and zeal for the Lord feel so cold? Is there some secret or new teaching or technique to add to our lives to find a breakthrough?

The answer is there is no secret except to go back to basics. Remember what it means to be a Christian and sit at the Lord’s feet. Love to learn from Him. That’s what today’s text is all about: recapturing the one thing that is necessary in the Christian life. The sermon title is One Thing is Necessary. As we look at the short text, we can state the main idea in this way: God teaches us that devoted discipleship comes before happy service.

Do you want to happily save Christ? You must get back to basics. Discipleship under Christ is what enables happy service for Christ. Just a word about the context, in Luke 10 Jesus is proceeding towards Jerusalem and His mind set on the cross. He is still taking the time to teach His disciples and we see the connection between loving God and serving God. In the beginning of the chapter, Jesus sends 70 of His disciples out on a mission. They come back excited about what they have accomplished. They say that even the demons are subject to them in His Name. Jesus tells them not to rejoice in this, their accomplished service. Rejoice that their names are written in Heaven.

Then there is an exchange with Jesus and a self-righteous man of the law. The man asks Him what the most important commands in the law are. Jesus directs him back to the Scriptures and the man admits that the most important is to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. The man asked who the deserving neighbor was and Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. He was asking the wrong question about who deserves our loving service. What God calls us to do is to be good neighbors to anyone in need because He loves us.

This theme of service to Christ comes after and only through love for Christ. You’re going to see that evident in our passage. For this narrative, we’re going to organize it under three headings, which each focus on particular characters highlighted in the plot. We see our first one from verses 38-39. The first highlighted character is the devoted disciple. Let’s look at these verses again in Luke 10:38-39:

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.

We learn that Jesus and His disciples have entered another village. Our author, Luke, doesn’t name the village but it’s probably Bethany, just east of Jerusalem. I say this because the information the Apostle John gives us in John 11 mentions that Bethany is where Martha, Mary, and Lazarus live. Jesus was a friend of this family and loved the three of them and ministered to each of them personally.

In turn, they loved the Lord and believed in Him and His Word and they were happy to offer Him a place to stay, who relied on this kind of hospitality. Because of His various trips to Jerusalem, He often stayed in this nearby town of Bethany. He often got to see His friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. This is probably not the first or last time in this particular passage. He comes to visit as He ministers in this city.

It says that Martha welcomes Jesus into His home. This was a righteous act and hospitality was particularly important at this time. Why does it say that Martha and not Lazarus did the welcoming? We can’t say for sure but probably it was because she was the oldest of the three siblings and she took a prominent and motherlike role for the family. She is the one who has the home and opens it up. As Lazarus is not particularly important in this story, he is not mentioned.

The one who really catches our attention is the second character, Mary. She is sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to His Word. Now you might ask what is so remarkable about this. Not only does sitting at someone’s feet very obviously indicate humility and deference to that person as they are literally seated lower, but this description meant something in this culture. To sit at someone’s feet was understood as to take the position of a disciple, committed learner, or follower of someone else.

In Acts 22:3, Paul is defending himself in front of a bloodthirsty mob in Jerusalem. He mentions that he was educated under Gamaliel, who was a famous rabbi. In the NASB the translation is educated under but a literal translation of that phrase is educated at the feet of Gamaliel. In other words, Paul says that Gamaliel was his master and he was the student. He literally sat at his feet and absorbed everything that his teacher had to say.

The same idea is expressed here in Luke 10 about Mary and Jesus. She voluntarily takes up a position as a humble learner of a great teacher and the Lord. It’s not the name Jesus used here but the Lord. Mary has come to the same realization about Jesus as other disciples. She would not doubt say as Peter said in Matthew 16:16 that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. She would also echo the words of John 6:68:

You have the words of eternal life.

She understands who Jesus and the value of His words so she wants to be His follower. She seats and orients herself to pay close attention as it says in Luke 4:22:

And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips.

Mary takes up the posture of a devoted disciple which she ought because of who Jesus is and which we ought to do as well. But perhaps more remarkable than the fact that Mary takes up this posture is that Jesus allows her to do so. He not only allows this but welcomes it and insists that no one take Mary away from this position.

Why is this particularly noteworthy? Because many people at the time including some Jewish rabbis had a very low view of women. They saw them as spiritually inferior, deviant, untrustworthy, and incapable. One ancient rabbi proclaimed, “Better to burn the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, than to teach it to a woman.” Not every rabbi felt that way and there were some Jews who had a high and respectful view of women.

Nevertheless for Jesus to so openly welcome a woman disciple and to give her a front row seat to His teaching would have raised more than a fe eyebrows. Actually this fact fits well into Luke’s overall purpose in writing his gospel record. Fundamentally Luke, a gentile, writes this whole book to show that Jesus is the Savior of all mankind, Jew and Gentile, man and woman.

Thus if you go through the gospel you’ll notice that Luke highlights more than other gospel writers the many times that Jesus goes out of His way to minister to gentiles and women. This is a beautiful display of Mary’s regard for the Lord and the Lord’s regard for Mary. She takes up the position of the devoted disciple and Jesus gladly receives her into that position and speaks to her His amazing and life giving Word.

But not is all happy and wonderful in this scene. We soon learn that there is trouble brewing in the kitchen and we arrive at our second heading and our second highlighted character in Luke 10:40, where we see the unhappy servant. The verse says:

But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”

Can you relate to this scene at all? You’re trying to do what’s right in some situation in your life and you’re trying to serve God and others. Maybe you’re trying to do something for your children but as you start to do it you heart starts to murmur. Your grumbling heart manifests into actual words to others. I think we’ve all been where Martha is in this text. That’s helpful because that helps us understand that Martha is not the villain here or the bad woman while Mary’s the good woman. Martha is a good woman and she loves and believes in the Lord.

If you go to John 11, you see this beautiful expression of faith in Christ even when her brother dies. Even here she is the one welcoming Jesus in with righteous hospitality. Even Martha’s desire to serve and prepare a proper meal for Jesus and the others with Him is a good thing. However, even good things can turn bad when they are done with the wrong attitude and with improper priority.

Martha really falls into two traps. The same kinds that we easily fail into. On the one hand, she makes too much of the secondary thing. And on the other hand she makes too little of the primary thing. Notice how it says that Martha was distracted with all her preparations. The word is translated into distracted which is good and literally means to be pulled or dragged away. Martha’s heart is being pulled in various directions as she has many different concerns as to how she can show proper hospitality to Jesus.

Now we aren’t given details in the text as to what if any division of responsibilities Martha and Mary had already decided between themselves. Did Martha say to Mary shortly before Jesus arrived that she will go into the main room to make sure Jesus has all He needs while the other takes care of the meal preparation? We often do that before guests come, right?

Maybe the responses were more spontaneous and Mary exclaimed that Jesus had arrived and she needed to go sit and listen while Martha decided she needed to get busy with much service. We don’t know what the set up was but something we can say is that Martha’s overburdening and being distracted was unnecessary and self-generated. It’s not that serving Jesus and preparing the meal was so difficult that Martha couldn’t do it by herself. It’s that preparing the meal the way that Martha felt was necessary turned out to be too much for her.

She was finding out that it was hard to reach her own self-devised standard of what the proper meal would look like. And again we can sympathize if someone really important showed up at your house after a long day’s journey, would you want to serve up three day old leftovers on paper plates? Or would you rather serve your best meal fresh and on your finest china? And you would clean your house, buy flowers, and arrange the lights in just the right way. That’s what we’d naturally be inclined to do. Again it’s not wrong that Martha wants to prepare something nice for Jesus. But she made a good and non-essential thing into an essential thing.

She felt that if she couldn’t present to Jesus the perfect meal and accomplish hospitality in just the way that she envisioned then all was lost and she was a failure and couldn’t show her face to Jesus again. Martha also forgot that Jesus is much more interested in what He can give us than what any of us can give Him. Remember that section in John 4 when Jesus is asking for a drink from the woman at the well? When she says to Him that He shouldn’t ask her because He is a Jew and she is a Samaritan, Jesus replies in a very poignant way. He says in John 4:10:

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.

Living water satisfies thirst forever and wells up to eternal life. Jesus is interested in giving us what He has to offer, more than what we can give Him. What was it that Jesus was offering Martha in this scene? What was the thing that He was offering her but she wasn’t willing to receive? She considered it good but not essential, even when it was Jesus Himself, His presence, companionship, and the love of the Son of God. Even the life-giving Word and wisdom of the God was being offered and not received. Is this not a precious, valuable thing? Jesus was willing to give this to Martha, Mary and anyone there who wanted it.

But Martha was too busy and she was communicating to the Lord with her good service and meal preparation is: “Thanks for coming by Jesus, but I don’t have time for You since I am too busy doing all the burdensome service that You require.” Now when you communicate something like that to Christ, I think you can understand that it does not honor Him. But it does often result in unhappy result. You will serve alright, but you won’t be happy and it won’t honor the Lord.

Before we go on, we should pause and ask what do our lives communicate to Jesus? Are we so caught up in good but less essential things that we don’t have time to be disciples by the Lord Himself? Do we see Jesus as the burden? Or rather do we lay aside unnecessary burdens so that we can have Jesus? Well Martha’s agitated mind leads to angry action. Notice in Luke 10:40 how Martha accuses her sister. She says her sister has left her to do all the meal preparation and hospitality alone. How inconsiderate and selfish is that after all she does for her sister? Poor Martha.

Have you ever said something like that in your heart or out loud? You come up with your own vision of what should happen and you have good things that Christ as called you to do. When others don’t help you to the extent that you think they need to, you resent them and complain about them. You might even rebuke them while you pity yourself. Notice that Martha’s accusation is not only against her sister but also against Christ. She says in Luke 10:40:

“Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”

Something implied is here that Jesus can see and hear that Martha is working hard and is asking why Jesus hasn’t intervened. Could it be that He just doesn’t care and love her, especially when Martha is working so hard. Why would Jesus let her be left alone? Martha gives Jesus a chance to redeem Himself and if He really cares about her then He will help achieve her vision. Don’t we do the same thing with God by asking Him to do something we want? We have a great and good vision of what we want to accomplish for God that is just not coming together. We blame others and question God’s love for us. Surely if God cared He wouldn’t have let this happen and would have provided more help. After all it is being done for Him!

This isn’t the only time someone has questioned the Lord’s care. The twelve disciples raised the same complaint against Jesus when they were caught in the dangerous storm at sea, when Jesus exhausted after a day’s ministry slept in the boat. They woke Jesus in Mark 4:38 and said:

Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

They say, “Look at this storm and difficulty? We have been following You and trying to do what is right but we are in the storm and You haven’t done anything about it. Could it be that You just don’t care?” Our hearts can say the same thing and more to God. Like Martha does here, we say that we will forgive Jesus if He sets everything right immediately. He should do what we think is necessary and what we want Him to do because we know better. Then we’ll believe in His love again and trust Him.

We can already see the contrast in attitudes of these two women. Mary sits to listen to Christ, but Martha stands to tell Christ what to do. Mary regards Christ with reverence but Martha regards Christ with suspicion. Now again Martha’s not evil but her heart has strayed to act in an evil and proud and foolish way. She regarded the lesser things as essential things and the essential things as something unimportant.

How does Jesus respond to Martha? We’ve seen the devoted disciple and the unhappy servant. Now let’s look at the last two verses and the last heading in the passage: “The Compassionate Teacher.” Look at Luke 10:41-42:

But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

This is such an amazingly gentle answer from the Lord. Not only does it demonstrate His love for Martha but for Mary too. Even while Martha is questioning that same love, she gets a loving response. Consider how Jesus might have responded to Martha. After all she interrupted the Great Teacher in the middle of His teaching and she criticized and dishonored Jesus in front of all His disciples. She publicly rebuked her sister when she had done nothing wrong. So how might have justly responded to Martha? He might have said, “How dare you interrupt my life-giving teaching with your petty complaint. You would not only rebuke your righteous sister but also me, your righteous Lord? Martha, is your heart not proud, self-righteous, and full of bitterness? Woman, you need to repent!”

But that is not the way our Savior responds and the way the Good Shepherd speaks to those He loves, and it shouldn’t be our way either. Look at how He begins. He says Martha Martha, which is a sign generally that a rebuke is coming since He is saying her name twice. It’s kind of like when your parents say your first and middle name when they are calling you. “David Andrew!” Hmm, I think I am in trouble!

We can see the same technique used in other places, even from Jesus. Look in Luke 13:34:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!

Or check out what it says in Luke 22:31:

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat.

But what’s evident in these examples is not only by saying the name twice that Jesus indicates that He will chide the person, but that He still loves them. There’s a tenderness and a care that is communicated in the repetition of the name in this way. He says, “Martha Martha, I love you and I hear you but I must tell you that you’ve understood this situation all wrong. Notice how Jesus correctly diagnoses Martha’s problem as He tells her that she is worried and bothered about so many things. Or to say it another way, she is unduly concerned and troubled about so many things that are good but ultimately not necessary. She has multiplied concerns for herself according to her own thoughts of what is needful.

It’s not surprising that Martha now feels overwhelmed. He wants her to understand that neither He or Mary overburdened Martha. Really she did this to her self. Jesus then reminds her that only one thing is necessary. In saying this, it’s not that He is saying that a meal is totally unnecessary and to forget the meal completely. Nor is He saying that any service or obedience to Him is unnecessary. You can glance at many other places in the Scriptures that in a certain sense service to Christ is necessary for the Christian.

Obedience to Jesus is the expected result of walking in holiness and in love of others. It is the expected result of becoming a true disciple of Jesus. But, in prioritizing the Christian life one thing must come before and be present in everything else. This priority needs to be so obvious that it is the one and only necessary thing. Jesus clarifies what that necessary thing is in the rest of His statement in Luke 10:42:

For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.

What is the one necessary thing? It is the same as the good portion that Mary chose for herself, namely sitting at the feet of Jesus. It is devoted discipleship and simply knowing, loving, and learning from the Lord! Isn’t this the same prioritized portion that we heard earlier in this service from Psalm 27. That’s David speaking in that psalm and he had the same heart! Psalm 27:4 says:

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord And to meditate in His temple.

That’s my priority! Look at Psalm 27:8:

When You said, "Seek My face," my heart said to You, "Your face, O Lord, I shall seek."

Then also in Psalm 27:11:

Teach me Your way, O Lord, And lead me in a level path Because of my foes.

Mary got it and David got it! And we can go to many other Scriptures with the same concepts to be reinforced. I’ll give you a few. Psalm 16:5 says:

The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot.

You’re my main part and priority! Then it says in John 17:3:

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

And then Jeremiah 15:16 says:

Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.

Brothers and sisters, Christianity is not merely some wise philosophy to follow or is it a set of rules to keep or a service list to do. It is first and foremost a relationship with God, with the Creator, the Holy Lord, the Loving Savior, with Jesus Christ. Martha forgot this one necessary thing. She neglected the relationship for the sake of service. But all the service in the world does not compare to simply knowing and loving Christ. Devoted discipleship under Christ must come before and be central in all the service to Christ.

Jesus was insistent with Martha that Mary’s good portion would not be taken away from her under His watch. Really rather than Mary going to help Martha, Martha ought to have come and sit with Mary at Jesus’ feet. They’d get to the meal later. You know what I find really interesting? This proper priority demonstrated by Mary here to know, love, and learn from Jesus seemed to occur again in another event captured by three of the gospels, not including Luke.

In John 12:1-8, Matthew 26:6-13, and Mark 14:3-9 all record Jesus’ final stay in Bethany right before He is crucified. This time Jesus is not at the home of Mary but of Simon, a former leper. Martha is there serving but not complaining this time. Lazarus and Mary are also there and what Mary does is so significant. Mary comes in with a costly alabaster of nard perfume and breaks it to pour the perfume over Jesus, even on His feet and wipes His feet with her hair. It’s an extraordinary expression of her love, devotion, and worship to Jesus. But what is the reaction of the other people present there? What is the reaction of the other disciples led by Judas Iscariot?

It is to rebuke her. They rebuke her for her incredible financial waste. Why this waste when this perfume could have been sold for more than a year’s wages, more than 300 denarii, and the proceeds given to the poor. Does that situation ring a bell? Isn’t that the exact same thing we see in Luke 10? Mary being rebuked for her worship because she is not engaging in service. Look at all the people we could have served if you had not wasted your perfume like that!

What is Jesus’ response in this later event? Just like his response in the other text. Let’s look at Mark’s version of events in Mark 14:6-7:

But Jesus said, “Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a good deed for Me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good to them; but you do not always have Me.”

I say again, Jesus is not anti-service. There are many good causes in which we Christians can be engaged. We should care about serving our spouses, our parents, our children, our church, and our nation. We should be committed to making disciples and for fighting for sound doctrine. But what must come before and fill all of that service? It must be sitting at the feet of Jesus worshipping and listening to Him! Devoted discipleship comes before happy service.

From these two passages please understand that taking this position will frequently be misunderstood and even maligned by other Christians who will accuse you by neglecting what they think is your necessary service. They will accuse you of being lazy, cowardly, and unloving. If you really loved others, what are you doing here?

But this is the position that Jesus commends in Mary and really commands of us. In fact, Jesus is so pleased with Mary’s devotion as noted in this other passage, that He declares in that same setting that wherever His gospel is preached the story of what she has done will be proclaimed also. Do you want to criticize her? Well Jesus wants to honor her. And the same is true for us.

So let’s ask now how is your relationship with the Lord? How do you even become His devoted disciple? By faith and repentance. You’ve understood that you don’t meet God’s perfect standard and you fall under the just penalty of sin because you’ve been a rebel just like everyone else. You’ve been a proud rebel committed to your way and inherited the wages of sin which is death forever as punishment in hell. But you also understand that God provided a way of rescue in the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. If you take Him as your Lord and Savior, you will not suffer the wrath of God but instead you will inherit life with Christ forever!

Have you become His devote disciple in that way? If you haven’t then you need to because the invitation is open. You don’t know how much time you have. But if you have committed to following Jesus as a devoted disciple, as I think most people in here already have, then do you live like it? Is it your priority to spend time with your Lord, get to know Him, and listen to His Word? Do you have a growing affection for Christ regardless of how well your life circumstances are going? Before you look to feed others with the grace of life, are you feeding yourself on Christ?

Or are you like Martha, distracted? Has something pulled you away from Christ. It could be even millions of unnecessary or good but less necessary things, like getting caught up in your work or raising your kids that you don’t have time for Christ. Has a political or social cause taken over your life and your thoughts and conversation? Of course everybody wants to enlist you today in their causes.

Do you have even a vision for the church or some ministry that you are involved in? Have you committed to that more than actually know God and loving Christ? Now brethren, I know it’s so easy to fall into these things and drift away. That’s why God gave us this passage. He speaks to us today reminding us that His ways are different from our ways. He will always provide what we need in a situation even when we’re committed to good things. He knows what we need and what we need most of all is to just sit at His feet and to love and learn from Christ. He, your Lord, is calling each of you today to come again and sit at His feet to learn from Him, love Him and then go serve.

Now you might be asking but Jesus isn’t here anymore so how can I sit at the Lord’s feet today as a disciple? Here’s where I need to pull something like a Vince Lombardi and just remind you ladies and gentlemen, this is how you sit at the Lord’s feet (*holds up a Bible*). It’s the Word of Christ! It still exists and we have it in the Bible today. Read and study this and talk to one another about this! Sing the truths and pray according to this! This is how you sit at the Lord’s feet.

This is the Word of Christ and it’s how God has chosen to show Himself to us today. You want to meet with God and encounter Him? It’s His Word that’s the way you do so. Now some of you might be hearing this and are saying to yourself that you have to add yet another thing to your day and another thing to check off on your to-do list. No! That is the wrong way to think about it! Don’t approach the Word like it’s another task to check off or an ammunition silo that you can stock up on to win all those theological debates with your brethren. That is not the way to approach the Word because that is not the way to approach Christ.

Approach Christ to get to know Him, love Him, and learn His way. That’s the way we should go to the Scriptures. Read it regularly as a devoted disciple. You don’t have to be a trained scholar to benefit from and enjoy this book. Just be a devoted disciple. Make this your food, because it is necessary for your spiritual growth. It is the food of Christ! Feed more on Christ as He reveals Himself to you in His Word. But some will say that they are so busy and don’t have any time for the Word.

I reply that I know and that we are all busy but is that a good excuse? Is that a good excuse for a disciple to make to his or her master? The truth is that we make ourselves busy. We are the ones who choose to fill up our schedules with the work and play that we deem is necessary for us. When we do this, we are so surprised that there isn’t any time left for God. Jesus tells us that one thing is necessary, so let’s adjust our lives as necessary. Let’s identify, limit, and cut off what is unnecessary or less necessary that is getting in the way of you and Christ.

Get creative. If you want to read the Bible but you’re finding that hard, you can listen to it while you drive or do chores that don’t require a lot of brain power. Let’s help one another in this. If you’re not sure how to read the Bible or where to start, talk with one of the elders or another mature brother or sister in Christ. We are designed to minister to one and help another sit at the feet of Jesus. If you can’t seem to secure time away from your kids to meet with the Lord, ask a family member or friend to help watch them for a little bit.

Now I know that this can be a particular challenge for moms, especially moms of newborns. I understand it’s difficult. But to help those moms and all of us together, let’s make it our ambition to set one another up for spiritual success. I feel like there’s another sports analogy in there somewhere like an alley-oop or the way a quarterback will throw the ball to his receiver. There’s a way you can set up the others in your family and church to be that better disciple of Christ. Husbands, ask your wives how you can help them sit at the Lord’s feet, and wives do the same for your husbands. Children, do the same for your parents and ask how you can be a spiritual blessing to each other. If you’re single or just friends, you can do the same thing. As it says in Hebrews 10:25:

Exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the day drawing near.

It can be hard if you’re all by yourself. Our commitment should be devoted disciples as God, but if we can help one another in this let’s do that. I should also clarify that reading the Bible is not the magic bullet that suddenly slays all your sins. You can regularly read and pray and still live a sinful life. It’s not a formula that you can just input Bible hours or prayer and automatically output holiness. It is a relationship after all.

Nevertheless I will say that I have not known one person leading a spiritually healthy and happy life who is not also regularly reading the Scriptures and praying. Indeed, it is amazing to observe, even as a pastor, the slow but perceptible transformation that often takes place for those who are devoted to feeing on Christ. They regularly read the Bible, pray, fellowship with other believers, listen to the preached Word, all these things that sometimes theologians call the means of grace. These different yet simple things that God has provided to us and called us to do as ways of getting to know Him. You know what happens when people do this? They grow in greater and greater love and joy and peace in Christ.

I’m not saying that we don’t want you to serve, we do! We always need more servants! But we don’t want it to come out from this mere duty mindset, that there’s a burdensome duty you have to do because you’re a Christian. When you’re regularly feeding on the Lord and meeting with Him when you’re that devoted a disciple, you want to serve. Not that there’s no toil but you want to do it as an act of grateful worship to your Lord.

Isn’t that what you want for yourselves? I don’t want to just go through the motions but also sincerely serve the Lord. That’s what we all want so we need to listen to the Lord’s Word today and get back to basics. Happy service to Christ starts with, follows from, and is filled with devoted discipleship under Christ. That’s the truth so let’s commit to being what we are: devoted disciples to our Lord.

Pray with me. My Lord, Jesus, thank You for Your Word. Just as You were so patient with Martha, You are so patient with us. Lord, we question Your care and we get dragged away by a whole bunch of things some of which are good and some of which are totally useless. We neglect the most important thing and yet You are patient and even today graciously calling us back via this Word that You’ve given to us to sit at Your feet. God, if there’s any who have never done that fundamentally and have just played games with You or lived their own way, I pray they would repent and come to know You today as their Lord and Master.

For the rest of us that can so easily stray, bring us back to the fundamentals, the one thing necessary which is to know You, learn more about You, love You. God we know that we will be the ones who get the joy out of it. The source of all joy and life is You. When we spend time with You, how could we not be blessed? Lord, help us to make the adjustments necessary for this even if they are painful and costly because only one thing is necessary. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

May 9, 2021
Peter’s Denial

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 3 Quarter 3 Lesson 3

Our Answers Bible Curriculum Sunday school resumes this Sunday with a look at Peter’s denials and later restoration by Jesus. Why did Peter deny Jesus? Do we also deny Jesus in our words and actions? And why is Jesus’ restoration of Peter so significant, for him and for us? We’ll consider these questions and more.

January 7, 2018
Jesus Has Power over Nature

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 3 Quarter 2 Lesson 2

This week in Sunday school, we look at two instances of Jesus displaying power over nature: Peter’s great catch of fish and Jesus’ walking on water. What exactly happened in these instances? Why did Jesus do what He did? How did his disciples react? And what does all this mean for us today?

Our main texts will be Luke 5:1-11 and Matthew 14:22-23.

September 17, 2017
Jesus Grows Up

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 3 Quarter 1 Lesson 10

This week in Sunday school, we look at Luke’s account of Jesus growing up and being left behind in Jerusalem. How did Jesus get left behind? How is it that the Son of God needed to learn wisdom or increase in favor with God? What does this account reveal to us about Jesus? We’ll consider these questions and more.

Our main text for Sunday school will be Luke 2:39-52.

June 18, 2017
The Birth of Christ

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 3 Quarter 1 Lesson 8

This week in Sunday school, we look at the birth of Jesus. Though we may feel very familiar with Luke’s account of Christ’s birth, how much of what we “know” is actually just tradition and not really found in the Bible? Moreover, has familiarity made us the lose the sense of wonder of what really happened in the incarnation? How should the Son of God’s incarnation impact our lives today? We’ll consider these questions and more.

Our main text will be Luke 2:1-20.

June 4, 2017
The Messiah’s Messengers

Answers Bible Curriculum Year 3 Quarter 1 Lesson 7

This week in Sunday school, we begin the birth narrative of Jesus by looking at the announcements God made via Gabriel to Zacharias and Mary. What exactly did Gabriel declare? How do Gabriel’s words connect with the Old Testament? What can we learn from Zacharias’ and Mary’s reactions? How do these passages connect with Luke’s overall purpose in His Gospel? We’ll consider these questions and more.

Our main text for Sunday school will be Luke 1:1-45.

May 28, 2017
Only One Thing is Necessary

In this sermon, Pastor Babij looks at the account of Jesus’ first visit to Mary and Martha. Pastor Babij explains that, in the hospitality situation of these two women and in the whole Christian life, worshipful intimacy with Christ must come before all other concerns. When service becomes more important than fellowship with God, Christians commit the same three blunders as Martha: they become distracted by activity and do not listen to Christ, they charge Christ with not caring enough about them, and they easily find fault in others.

January 10, 2016
Three “R’s” Worth Remembering: Ruin – Redemption – Regeneration

In this special Thanksgiving sermon, Pastor Babij explains how, despite man’s apparent progress, man is actually in a state of continual spiritual ruin. Pastor Babij explains the reality of God’s judgment as well as God’s merciful provision of redemption and regeneration for all of those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ.

November 22, 2015