Sermon Central
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Third Sunday In Lent (B C P). Series
Contributed by Christopher Holdsworth on Mar 19, 2025 (message contributor)
Summary: Sermons upon the Bible readings of the Book of Common Prayer.
LUKE 11:21-22. The second little parable looks at things from another angle. Jesus illustrates Satan as a strong man guarding his house. Now a stronger than he has come, and is in process of binding Satan, and spoiling his house.
LUKE 11:23. Jesus had come to bind Satan before destroying the evil one’s hold upon the kingdoms of the world. And whoever is not in favour of Jesus is His enemy!
LUKE 11:24-26. A person might not think themselves to be possessed of an evil spirit, but to be living our lives without Christ puts us in a similar plight. It is the very height of madness to rush into eternity without having found peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. All have sinned, and all sinners need repentance.
Repentance is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is a turning away from sin. On the other, it is turning to good. It is out with the old, in with the new.
Yet this is not just turning over a new leaf, amending our lives. To ‘cease to do evil’ and to ‘do good’ is impossible unless there is also a spiritual change: a spiritual emptying, and a spiritual infilling.
It is well that the demon is cast out: but when the demon goes, there is no native goodness to rebuild life, there is only a void. Unless that void is filled with God Himself, the demon will return with seven others worse than itself, and the patient will be rendered worse than before. Thankfully, in His mercy, the Lord not only casts out the evil, but gives us His Holy Spirit.
LUKE 11:27. A certain unnamed woman now pronounced a blessing upon the one who bore Jesus. Of course, when rightly understood, she was not wrong. After all, the angel Gabriel had told Mary, ‘blessed art thou among women’ (cf. Luke 1:28); and Mary herself humbly acknowledged, ‘henceforth all generations shall call me blessed’ (cf. Luke 1:48).
LUKE 11:28. However, Jesus’ response to this woman’s enthusiastic outburst was to announce that true blessedness rested not in a material relationship with Him, but in “hearing the word of God, and keeping it.” Which, incidentally, His mother Mary did.
