Your Response Matters Series

"Your Response Matters"

Luke 11:24-36

A sermon for 7/10/22 – Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Pastor John Bright

Luke 11 “33 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. 34 The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”

Pause right there. Those words I just read; they were “Breathed by God”! God wants you to hear His Word right now! So, what is your response? Do you want to transformed by that Word or do you want to be informed about the words? You have to choose.

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I hate to be the bearer of bad news… but there is a deep divide in this sanctuary. No – it’s not what you think. It’s not political parties. It’s not hot-button social justice issues. Nope, it’s our view of “What is truth?” Here’s a way to view our divide from Os Guiness:

“Three baseball umpires debate their different philosophies of umpiring…

“There’s balls and there’s strikes.” Says the first, “and I call them the way they are.”

“No!” exclaims the second umpire. “That’s arrogant. There’s balls and strikes and I call them the way I see them.”

“That’s no better,” says the third. “Why beat around the bush? Why not be realistic about what we do? There’s balls and strikes and they ain’t nothing till I call them.”

The first umpire represents the traditional view of truth—objective, independent of the mind of the knower, and there to be discovered. The second umpire speaks for moderate relativism—truth “as each person sees it” according to his or her perspective and interpretation. And the third umpire bluntly expresses the radically relativist, or postmodern, “truth” is not there to be discovered; it is for each of us to create for ourselves. (Time for Truth: Living Free in a World of Lies, Hype, and Spin, 2000, pg. 12)

Now that we live in a world where people claim “there is no absolute truth” we have to think about how people view the Bible because God’s Word has always been understood to make absolute claims on the life of the Believer. That will NEVER change!

In today’s reading, we see Jesus expects a response from those who are confronted with His teaching and His ministry. The same is true today, so I gave this sermon the title – “Your Response Matters.”

Your response to spiritual freedom, v. 24-26

“24 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. 26 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

In this illustration, Jesus shows us that when a person is set free and saved, she or he is like a house that has been cleaned out. We know that the blood of Jesus washes us clean at the moment of salvation. Amen? When there is a new Believer, that life/house must be filled with the things of God.

I have often heard that John Wesley had to deal with folks who were saved and then went right back to a life in the pubs filled with drunkenness. His response – they were not saved.

Is there a difference between the folks in here and the folks out there? Are we like them with a little religion thrown into the mix? We should be different – radically different.

The response of obedience, v. 27-28

“27 And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!”

28 But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Jesus’ response to this woman is in the form of a “beatitude.” It reminds me of James 1 “22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”