WHEN JESUS IS IN THE HOME LUKE 4:38-44
Sermon by Don Emmitte
Today is Mother’s Day! I hope you all have made your purchases and special arrangements to honor these important women of your life. If not, I have a bit of advice taken from an article I read some time ago in Reader’s Digest, written by Herb Forst of Cross River, NY. It was titled “What Not to Buy your Wife.”
Although the only person a man usually shops for is his wife, the whole experience is a stressful one. Many a man has felt extreme frigid temperatures for a long period based on a poor present decision. As a veteran of these wars, I'm still not sure what to buy my wife, but I'll pass on what not to buy her:
Don't buy anything that plugs in. Anything that requires electricity is seen as utilitarian.
Don't buy clothing that involves sizes. The chances are one in seven thousand that you will get her size right, and your wife will be offended the other 6,999 times. "Do I look like a size 16?" she'll say. Too small a size doesn't cut it either: "I haven't worn a size 8 in 20 years!"
Avoid all things useful. The new silver polish advertised to save hundreds of hours is not going to win you any brownie points.
Don't buy anything that involves weight loss or self-improvement. She'll perceive a six-month membership to a diet center as a suggestion that's she's overweight.
Don't buy jewelry. The jewelry your wife wants, you can't afford. And the jewelry you can afford, she doesn't want.
And, guys do not fall into the traditional trap of buying her frilly underwear. Your idea of the kind your wife should wear and what she actually wears are light years apart.
Finally, don't spend too much. "How do you think we're going to afford that?" she'll ask. But don't spend too little. She won't say anything, but she'll think, "Is that all I'm worth?"
Herb Forst in Cross River, NY, Patent Trader, in Reader's Digest, p. 69.
If you have already made your purchase and you’ve broken one or more of these rules, plead ignorance! It’s your only hope of survival! And, after all, survival is often the best hope for our homes! There is a better way though. God wants our homes to do more than survive. He wants them to thrive. Today’s text gives us a keen insight into how we may be able to do just that. TAKE YOUR BIBLES PLEASE AND TURN TO LUKE 4:38-44…
Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them. At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah. At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (Luke 4:38-44 NIV).
The site of Peter’s home is one of the sacred locations of Christendom. Every Holy Land pilgrim is taken to Capernaum where the home is reported to have stood. The ruins of an old church that was built on the site of the home are still much in evidence today. The thing that makes this site so sacred is that Jesus spent a great deal of time in this home. The things he did in this home are the same things he desires to do in our homes.
It is fitting that Luke chose to place this incident immediately after Jesus’ experience in the synagogue. A careful reading of the Gospel will indicate that Jesus did much of his ministry in a home setting. He felt as free to work in a home as he did in the synagogue or the Temple. This is exactly as it should be. After all, the home was established long before the church.
We should be cognizant of the fact that the presence of Jesus in Simon Peter’s home was a part of the incarnation. Jesus was physically present in the home. In our day this is not possible. Because of his ascension to the Father, however, there are no such physical limits to his presence. He can equally be present in each of our homes at the same moment. And, if Jesus has indeed found a place in our home, there will be some differences.
FIRST, WHEN JESUS IS IN THE HOME, HE MEETS THE NEEDS OF THE HOME (v. 39).
Simon Peter’s home was not far from Nazareth. Capernaum was located about 80 miles from the boyhood home of Jesus on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was a prominent city because of the fishing trade. Jesus would have certainly visited there often before his formal announcement of the beginning of his ministry. However, when Simon Peter and his brother, Andrew, became disciples Jesus was given access to everything in their lives, including their home. It would have been very natural after a busy day teaching in the synagogue for Jesus to go to Peter’s house to spend the rest of the day and night. It became Jesus’ home when he was in the area.
In our text today we see that someone told Jesus of the illness of Peter’s mother-in-law. She was sick with a “high fever.” Evidently, as Luke the physician recounts, the condition was very serious and chronic. When Jesus finds her she is lying in bed in a weakened condition, perhaps near death. What happens next is important to note: So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. There are two principles:
First, we see Jesus’ response was immediate. Don’t miss the note that Jesus “bent over” Peter’s mother-in-law. It is the kind of posture that a physician of the day would have taken. It shows a deep level of compassion and concern. However, there is a great difference in what Jesus did. A physician would have examined her compassionately and perhaps diagnosed the illness, prescribing medications to lower the fever in hope of healing her body. Jesus did much more than that. He showed compassion AND authority over the illness itself. As Creator he spoke to the body itself and expelled the infection restoring her to health.
Second, we see Jesus’ healing was complete. She got up at once and began to wait on them. The healing was not a process, but was an immediate release from the disease. It was not partial, but complete. The woman was so immediate restored that she was able to begin to minister to others in the home. Jesus had met the need of the woman completely!
What is the most pressing need in your home today? If you were to make a list of all the challenges you face today, what would be at the top of your list? Whatever it is, Jesus can meet that need. It is a promise we can count on. Now, I am not saying how he will meet that need; I am unequivocally stating that he will meet that need.
There’s a wonderful story that illustrates this promise and how we can appropriate it in our lives. In 1818 one out of six women who had children died of something called "childbirth fever." A doctor’s daily routine back then started in the dissecting room, where he performed autopsies, and from there he made his rounds to examine expectant mothers. No one even thought to wash his hands; at least not until a doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis began to practice strict hand washing. He was the very first doctor to associate a lack of hand washing with the huge fatality rate. Dr. Semmelweis only lost one in fifty, yet his colleagues laughed at him. Once he said, "Childbirth fever is caused by decomposed material conveyed to a wound. I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proven all that I’ve said. But while we talk, talk, talk, women are dying. I’m not asking for anything world shaking, only that you wash your hands." Yet virtually no one believed him. The first step in claiming the promise of Jesus to heal is to believe that he will! This is at the root of Jesus declaration:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:7-11 NIV).
Whatever your need, it makes all the difference in the world when Jesus is in the house! When he is in our home he meets these needs in such a way that the negatives of fear, doubt, and anxiety are removed. Satan has no power over us with those tactics any longer! He replaces those emotions with peace, contentment and joy. Jesus meets the needs of the home!
SECOND, WHEN JESUS IS IN THE HOME, HE MINISTERS THROUGH THE HOME (vv. 40-41).
As soon as the sun began to set, marking the end of the Sabbath, people began to appear at the door of Simon’s home. They were bringing with them members of their families that needed His healing touch. Some of them had to be carried, others led; but they all were brought to Jesus! Then Jesus healed them all. He met the needs of all those who were brought to him!
This story was repeated over and over in the ministry of Jesus. Whenever he was in a home, that home became a channel of ministry. It happened in the home of Matthew, Mary and Martha, Zacchaeus, and Simon the Leper. It also happened in the homes of Aquilla and Priscilla after his ascension. Homes were the primary center for the spread of the gospel in the early church. He desires it to be repeated now as well. J. Winston Pearce shares an experience that brings into sharp focus the potential of this truth. He wrote:
One of our American ministers who was in Paris some years ago visited one of the small churches and learned of an interesting experience from the pastor of the church. As a new minister he had visited in the home of one of the members. When the husband in the home came home later in the day, his wife told him about the minister’s visit. She said, “When the new preacher came by today, he asked a very strange question.” “Well, what was it?” asked the husband. She said, “He asked if Jesus lived here?” The man was a bit indignant. He straightened and said, “Didn’t you tell him we were Christians?” “But, dear, he didn’t ask that.” Even more indignantly, the husband said, “Why didn’t you tell him we pay our tithes to the church?” She said, “Well, I thought about that, but that wasn’t what he asked.” Even more offended and a bit angry by now, the husband said, “Why didn’t you tell him we attend services every Sunday?” Again she said, “Dear, that wasn’t what he asked.”
And that’s not what Jesus asks us today. The question for all of us is Does Jesus have a home in our home? Is he the Lord of our home, or merely an unseen guest? If you will let him be the Lord of your home, he will begin to manifest his presence in a wonderful way!
