Pentecost 3/ St. Peter & St. Paul, Series B. 6/29/2003. Mark 3:20-35
St. Paul Lutheran Church, Garner, Iowa
“Satan is Strong, but Jesus is Stronger”
Introduction
In his book The Renew Mind (Bethany House, 1981), Larry Christiansen tells a story that is a perfect illustration for our sermon text for today. I’d like for you to imagine that you live in a run down apartment. As I describe this, I actually picture in my mind my apartment in St. Paul I shared with my old roommate and good friend, Burke, our second year at Concordia when they ran out of dorm space and put some of us upper classmen in “better” accommodations in the old apartments the college owned across the street from the main campus. By run down I don’t just mean it needs a new coat of paint. Your walls and ceilings have holes in them. Your carpets are threadbare. Some places you can even see the floorboards instead of the carpet it’s so worn. The windows leak cold air in the winter and bugs in the summertime. Often, your heat or your plumbing doesn’t work properly, or you get all kinds of wonderful creepy, crawly things coming up out of your pipes and into your sinks and bathtub. Anyway, you’re living in this type of an apartment, and every month, your landlord comes to your door to collect your month’s rent. Your rent is already pretty high, and you might be having a hard time paying it right now. You may well even be a couple months behind on your rent and some of your utility bills. However, your landlord every month informs you of a rent increase. You try to explain your situation, you are working as hard as you can, and you are having a hard enough time trying to make ends meet as it is, and a rent increase is something you simply can’t afford. When you hesitate about this rent increase, or no matter what reasons you can give him for not increasing the rent and being merciful toward your situation, this landlord replies back “so, you want to make this hard huh? I can increase your rent even more and cut off some services if you don’t like it.” I don’t know about you, but if I had a landlord like this guy, I’d be outright miserable. However, you really don’t have anywhere else you can go, housing is next to impossible for you to find, so you keep paying whatever rent this mean, nasty old landlord wants from you when he demands it.
Then one day, you hear a gentle knock on your door. Fearing it may be that pesky old landlord coming back to harass you some more, you only open the door a crack. However, its not who you think it is. You find a nicely dressed, smiling young man at your door asking if he can speak with you for a moment. You open the door and he explains “just this morning, I purchased your apartment building, so I guess that makes me your new landlord. I am going around to all the apartments and I was wondering if it would be okay if I could come in and inspect your rooms? You let him in and as he sees the horrible conditions in which you are living, the young man is simply appalled. “I will see to it that every single repair that is needed to this apartment is made right away, no one should have to live like this, and I am going to cancel all your debts you have.” You can’t believe your ears! Everything is going to be fixed and your past debts are all cancelled! Every single one of them! Forgotten.
But just then, there is another knock at the door. You swing the door open in joy only to discover your old landlord glaring at you, and he doesn’t look very happy. He demands extra rent, and he wants it right now or he will throw you and your family out on the street. What should you do? Give in to this old man’s threats and intimidation and pay him what he demands from you? You’re too weak to fight him yourself, and there’s no way you can afford to have an attorney defend you in court. But wait, the building doesn’t belong to this guy anymore, remember, it now belongs to the generous new landlord. Why waste your time arguing with the old landlord? Tell him to take it up with the new owner who is right there in your apartment as this all unfolds. You don’t owe any further explanation! Amazing story isn’t it? If only it were true. Well, I have some wonderful news for you all. It is. You see, Satan is just like that old, mean, rotten landlord. He’s always demanding, always attacking us. Quite often, through the force of his evil demeanor and because his accusations of our sins are correct, he intimidates us into serving him. However, you have been bought with a price! You now belong to Jesus, your new landlord. Whenever Satan reminds you of sins you have repented of, or tries to coerce you into serving evil desires, simply tell him to take it up with your new landlord. Regardless of how often he keeps coming back, send him packing and trust the promises of the new owner, Jesus Christ!
Christ defeated sin, death, and the devil once and for all. He bought us each with a very heavy price, his own blood. Even though Satan will try to convince us otherwise, we are very precious to Jesus. As we reflect on Jesus’ love and forgiveness, we are able to gain the strength we need to overcome temptations and strength to battle against evil. Recall Jesus’ words from our text for today: “No one can enter a strong man’s house or carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man.” Although Satan is strong, Jesus is stronger.
Satan’s Strategies
Now don’t get me wrong, Satan is very strong. He’s also no dummy, either. He will try a lot of things to try to get you away from your Lord and Savior. One of the things Satan tries to do to us is he tries to convince people that he still may win in the end. Just take a look at our world today. It’s easy to say that sometimes, evil does triumph in the world. However, this triumph is only temporary. Think of some of the most brutal ruling regimes in the history of our world, how many of them were able to stay in power before their reigns of terror and evil were destroyed? Satan will use these events to make us think that he might still win, but any victory he may attain will not last, because he’s already lost the war.
Another one of Satan’s favorite tricks is he tries to control or dominate our lives. There are several ways in which he can do this. In Jesus day, as evidenced in our sermon text from this morning, one way Satan tried to control people is by demon possession. We read about this many times throughout scripture. Those who were possessed really didn’t have any choice in what they did, Satan controlled every single thing they did, and it usually wasn’t pretty. Sometimes even today, demon possession happens, perhaps some of you have seen on television or on video an exorcism. Although demon possession is rare today, there are other ways that Satan can manipulate or try to control us. I think Pastor Kieschnick put it best when he would always say that “Satan knows everything, he knows your deepest, darkest secret. Satan knows your deepest fears, your biggest sins, and everything that you struggle with. And he uses these to work on you in your everyday life. He can use addictions to drugs and alcohol to control you. He can use guilt over past sins or sins that we struggle to free ourselves from, to the point where we feel that we can’t be forgiven anymore. Satan’s name in the Hebrew means “Adversary, Accuser.” And he loves to use your guilt, your past sins, your personal struggles, your weaknesses every opportunity he can get.
Yet another strategy Satan will employ against us is he will try to discourage people from coming to faith in Jesus Christ by slandering Jesus’ name and power. Satan wants us to believe that Jesus’ rule over us is evil, and his commands for our lives are not for our own good. We see that happen in this text for this morning. Jesus had been driving out demons. These Pharisees were terrified! Here we have someone running around claiming to be the Son of God, and he’s out there driving out demons! Even Jesus’ mother and brothers, his own family here on earth, dropped what they were doing to go tend to him because they said “He is out of his mind!” He must be possessed, which is one of the two charges that are leveled against Jesus in this text. The Pharisees claimed that Jesus was possessed by a demon, and that he was using Satan’s power to drive out demons. It happened even long before this text, back in Genesis in the Garden of Eden when Satan said to Eve about the tree in the middle of the garden “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? (Genesis 3:1) When Eve said that they were allowed to eat from any tree in the garden but not from the tree in the middle of the garden, and they must not touch it or they would die, Satan’s response is “you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5)
Today, just as in the time of our sermon text, and even back in that scene in the Garden that caused man’s fall into sin, Satan is still hard at work, trying to discredit the church any way he can. As I say this, it is very easy to start pointing fingers at our Christian brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church and all the well-publicized problems and scandals in our country that they have to face in the last couple of years especially. However, our Lutheran church is not above attack, either. We have some in other Lutheran church bodies that want to claim all of scripture isn’t really God’s Word, it contains errors, and certain things that applied back in Biblical times, just don’t apply now because we live in a different society that is more accepting and open than it was in Jesus’ time. If that’s the case, then its okay to be homosexual, its not sinful behavior today, it’s merely an alternative lifestyle. So that means we should bless marriages of homosexual people. The church should be open to new ideas and should allow these people to be in the ministry and in positions of leadership within our church to get it out of the Stone Age and with the times. Or it’s okay to get an abortion, its no big deal, that’s not really a human life; it’s a woman’s choice. Or, we don’t even need to leave our own Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to find Satan hard at work, trying to discredit our Lord and Savior and the very Word of God that our church body has claimed as the sole rule and norm of our faith and our walking together as a synod for the past 156 years. Just take a look at recent events in our synod, where people want to argue that it’s okay to pray with pagans who are not praying to the one true God, it’s okay to jointly worship with those who don’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as their savior and the only way to heaven. It’s okay to believe, teach, and confess something that may give an improper witness to the world as long as you have someone else’s approval first, or you mean well. When we have a problem with someone who is acting in a sinful way, rather than confront them and go through the process Jesus gave us in Matthew 18, we try to show the world we are right and they are wrong, on both the parts of the accusers and the accused, using news letters, news releases, email lists, internet sites and message boards, and many other ways of proving we are right they are wrong, and that becomes what others see of the church. It’s interesting to note, and I feel it applies here, Every time I have visited with seminary students or recent seminary graduates at one of our seminaries, one common quote and word of advice I hear from these men is this: “Satan is hardest at work here, at the seminary, and also with those in positions of leadership in our church today, because Satan knows if he can strike down the shepherd, no one will be able to hear the true gospel.” It even happens in our own individual congregations. Satan will pounce on issues that arise within the every day life of a congregation to use them as an opening to get our focus away from “living and proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ” and turn things into a war within the congregation. Sometimes to the point of where if certain individuals or groups within the congregation do not get what they want, or things done their way, they threaten, then actually take action by either causing trouble, cut off financial support for the work of God’s kingdom in that place, work to deceive or somehow manipulate others into going along with their agenda so they can get what they want in the end, regardless of what might be best for the congregation as a whole in that place and time, or leave the congregation and take others with them. Sadly, when this happens, the focus is no longer “living and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ”, but getting things my way, and the church stops growing as others outside of the congregation or those who get fed up and walk away see that congregation not as a place of growth in their faith in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and somewhere they want to invite their friends to come be a part of, but a place where constant bickering, power struggles, politics, keeping up with some other church down the street or in the next town, making certain people comfortable, and social status is more important, and growth in that congregation both in numbers and in their spiritual lives comes to a stand still. My friends, Satan is indeed very hard at work to discredit the church and the name of Jesus Christ.
Satan doesn’t even stop with us. He doesn’t stop with the church. He even tried to temp Jesus from offering his life on the cross in our place for our sins. In Matthew 4:1-11 we read of Satan trying to temp Jesus. Satan even “took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8-9) Satan will stop at nothing to convince us that he just might win and Jesus could lose.
Jesus’ Triumph
Despite all these tactics that Satan will employ, he has no chance of victory. Yes, Satan did tempt Jesus and go to the point of offering him the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would bow down and worship him, but Jesus reply was “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” (Matthew 4:10) Satan left him. Jesus overcame temptation in our place. He submitted to the Father’s will and went willingly to the cross. He suffered and died in our place. He rose from the dead on Easter. In doing so, through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has bound that strong man, Satan.
Battles still go on in our world today, as I mentioned earlier, however, on the cross, Jesus won the war with three simple words from the cross, “It is finished.” Victory is his. For those of us who trust in that victory, it is assured for us, too. We can ignore Satan because he has been tied up; sin, death, and Satan’s power have no hold over us anymore. Satan may still hinder us from time to time, but Jesus is stronger. Jesus will not allow Satan to prevent the work of the church from carrying out God’s work. Jesus won’t allow Satan to prevent the continued preaching of the gospel. Jesus, having tied up the strong man, can now rob Satan and his kingdom. Jesus robs Satan every time we gather here in this place. Every time we gather together in worship to be fed by God’s Word to us, every time we come forward to this altar to receive that very body and blood that Jesus gave for us for the forgiveness of our sins, every time we witness someone coming into the family of faith through the waters of baptism at this very font, Jesus is freeing precious souls, our souls, from Satan’s oppression and brings them into the safety of his grace. We are able to count ourselves as Jesus’ brothers, sisters, and mothers as he referred to those seated around him in our text. Released from the grasp of Satan, we are now safely in the family of faith.
Our Response
What wonderful news and what wonderful words. How do we respond to this? Jesus invites us to pray for the coming of his kingdom, which we do every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer as he taught us to pray. We live in a tension of knowing that God’s kingdom is here and yet “to come”. In this life here on earth, we are to be on guard, ready to combat evil, ready to deny those who want to come in and discredit God’s Word. As we well know, this does and will continue to happen, but we can go and combat every evil that tries to come into our lives knowing that God is with us in our struggles and that we can be confident that we know Jesus has already won. Perhaps this analogy might help. If someone has already told you the happy ending, a terrifying movie or a suspenseful book no longer creates fear. You already know the outcome anyway. The final outcome of the war with Satan is already known, Jesus has won. In the midst of the temptation Satan will try to throw at us, cherish this knowledge of the end of the story, it finds us resting securely in the arms of Jesus in heaven.
We, as the church here on earth, the “Church Militant”, we have been set free to proclaim Jesus’ forgiveness and peace. We have the precious means of grace, the Word and Sacraments, to labor with in order to free ourselves and others so that they too may join us in the church triumphant. In gratitude for what Christ has done for us, we do the will of God. This involves that faith in our hearts, the confession we make with our lips, be it with the words of the Apostles’ Creed or once you leave here this morning and enter into your work that God has set for you to do this week. It involves our good works we are able to do as a result of our faith in Christ. They show the joy that we have in knowing Jesus has won, Satan has no power over us.
Conclusion
We may be tempted to give into that pesky old landlord and his constant nagging. As sinners, it is natural. From time to time we may forget the victory that is ours. Now, as we await the fulfillment of Christ’s promise of eternal life, we enjoy life under our new landlord. We are redeemed! The debts that are our sins have been cancelled, forgiven, no more! This is the abundant life of which Christ spoke. In Christ, we not only meet Satan’s challenge, we are more than conquerors, we are victors! May God grant that for Jesus sake. Amen.
And now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in true faith until life everlasting. Amen.
