To Be Like Jesus: The Time Has Come. Loyal Evangelical Church, Loyal OK

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." ~Jesus Christ, in Matthew 28:18-20

Loyal, OK

Pastor Leon Seaton

To Be Like Jesus--The Time Has Come

Mark 1:4-27

Jesus launched His ministry by the simple statement, “The Time Has Come.”

Thus begins the dramatic ministry of the Son of God as He walked among us – truly God and truly man. Quite frankly I cannot explain “truly God/truly man” any better then I can explain the Trinity. Some things we have to accept by faith.

Our church has entered its “new future” having severed our ties with the UCC and linking up with the Evangelical Association. This “new future” looks back to the history – the intent of our founding fathers in 1894 when we were named the Friedens Evangelical Church.

To borrow from an old film, we have gone “Back to The Future.”

Jesus went from obscurity to instant fame when He entered His ministry. The most widely known preacher of the day, John the Baptist, announced to the world that Jesus was the Messiah. After John made the announcement and baptized Jesus, Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days. Then Jesus began appointing His team of disciples.

John began his ministry in the wilderness; Jesus began His by teaching in their synagogues. However, his teaching was much different than that of the others. He taught with authority. This was a double-edged sword that won both admirers and enemies

John the Baptist faced his own problems – again because of dynamic, powerful preaching. He ended up in prison!

Luke 4:22-28 tells of a visit that Jesus made on the Sabbath at the Synagogue in His home town of Nazareth. It was normal to invite guests to speak, and Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah. After reading from Isaiah 61:1-2, Jesus caused a major stir.

All spoke well of Him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from His lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to Me: 'Physician, heal yourself!' Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum."

"I tell you the truth," He continued, "No prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian."

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove Him out of the town, and took Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. But He walked right through the crowd and went on His way.

Whoa! Jesus was tossed out of church!

Let’s pause here for a few minutes and talk about the Sabbath. The Sabbath had its beginning in the Old Testament. God rested on the Seventh day and He instructed the Israelites to do the same.

Things changed after the resurrection. The believers met on the first day of the week.

Acts 20:7 - On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.

1 Corinthians16:3 - On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

Colossians 2:16 - Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.

Back to our message: Jesus really upset those in attendance by what He said. "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself!' Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum. I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his home town.”

People don’t object to good teaching… unless you insist they respond! They were ready to kill Jesus. But, it was not time for Jesus to die for our sins so He easily slipped through the crowd. This was possible because of His guardian angels and because of the will of the Father.

You and I have angels that guard us. We should not do foolish things, however we can be confident of their protection.

Jesus had the power to control storms. For instance, when the disciples thought that they would die because of a storm at sea, Jesus came on board and calmed the storm.

Jesus and His power have not been diminished in any way. He still looks out for us!

As Jesus continued His ministry He went to Capernaum. The next Sabbath He was back in a synagogue, teaching the people. Again, the people were amazed at His teaching, because He taught as one that had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

(You have to like the way Rev. Thomas G. Long illustrates what happened when Jesus cast out the demon!)

“Some people are masters of understatement. Take, for example, the people who were there in the synagogue at Capernaum the day Jesus was the preacher. They made what surely must be one of the great understatements of all time. What happened, according to the Gospel of Mark, was that Jesus showed up at the synagogue on the Sabbath and preached an unusually powerful sermon.

“Rather than leaving the congregation bewildered by spending His time parsing Hebrew sentences, splitting theological hairs, and quoting fifteen other rabbis, each quoting someone else, Jesus simply looked them in the eye and preached from the heart. Mark tells us that the congregation was "astonished," but that’s not the understatement. It was the congregation who made the understatement, and it came after what happened next.

“Right at the end of Jesus’ sermon, just as people were leaning over to whisper to each other that it would surely be nice to have preaching like that every week, the spell was broken by the appearance of a demon-possessed man squarely in the middle of the congregation. Where he came from, God only knew. Mark doesn’t say. Mark just uses one of his favorite words: immediately. "Immediately there was in their synagogue," he says, "a man with an unclean spirit," which is Mark’s way of sweeping his hand across the literary table, knocking off whatever was on there before and saying, "You think that was something; look at this!"

“So the people couldn’t waste too much time thinking about that good sermon, because they had an "immediately" on their hands, and, in this particular case, the "immediately" was a raving man in the middle of church shouting vague threats at the young Preacher who had just done such a fine job with the sermon.

"I kno-o-o-w who you are," howled something deep within the man. "You’re the H-o-o-o-l-y One of God."

"Shut up," said Jesus. "Come out of him!" Things were getting curiouser and curiouser that Sabbath day in Capernaum. The man fell to the synagogue floor, his arms beating wildly at the air, his legs thrashing out so that people moved back to give him a wide circle, froths of foam and strange cries coming out of his mouth. Then the man became strangely calm and lay very still. Slowly he picked himself up off the floor, his face now tranquil, his eyes clear, his voice measured and composed.

“Now comes the understatement. The people in the congregation, having witnessed a scene to rival anything in The Exorcist, looked around at each other and said, "What is this? A new teaching!"

“A new teaching? If this had happened in any congregation I know, they may have sat for hours in stupefied silence, they may have rushed to the altar in sudden repentance, or they may have leapt out of the church windows in terror, but the last thing they would have done was to comment on how this casting out of a demon constituted an innovation in Christian education.” Found at www.esermons.com

A new teaching? Indeed.

The evil spirit cried out, “What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are – the Holy One of God!” Jesus knew who he was as well, and He did not let the evil spirit control Him. He took authority over him.

The evil spirit professed Jesus as the Holy One of God. But it did not help him. It takes more that that! Our lives have to match our testimony.

Jesus responded to the evil spirit: “Be quiet! Come out of him!”

The evil spirit had no choice! It shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek! Now, I do not anticipate that we will be having the casting out of demons in our church, but to quote Jesus, “THE TIME HAS COME!” for us to enter the future by being a truly evangelistic evangelical church.

Sing the chorus: “I’ll say yes, Lord yes!” <-- click on the underlined words

February 23, 2008