1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,320 So my name is Greg Hampton. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in I think our third week of our series called Say What? 2 00:00:09,680 --> 00:00:19,680 And forgive me if this one feels just a little bit all over the place, but I think it comes together in the end, so stay with me. 3 00:00:19,680 --> 00:00:27,680 All right. All right. So let's jump right in. We're going to be in our Bibles in the book of Luke, chapters 9 and 11. 4 00:00:27,680 --> 00:00:35,680 It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans in what is called sometimes the New Testament, the Second Testament, the Newer Testament, etc. etc. 5 00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:48,680 So if you want to open up your Bibles to Luke, if you don't have one, you can download one from any of the digital app stores, or you can grab one for free on our bookshelf out here in the lobby before you go home today. 6 00:00:48,680 --> 00:00:56,680 They're blue. And we're going to be in Luke, chapter 9. We like to have the tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention. 7 00:00:56,680 --> 00:01:00,680 Whatever way makes the most sense for you to give the scripture your full attention, do that. 8 00:01:00,680 --> 00:01:05,680 One of the ways that we also do that is to stand together, anyone that would like to or is able. 9 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:10,680 So let's go ahead and do that. Anyone that would like to join me in standing as we read the scriptures. 10 00:01:10,680 --> 00:01:15,680 Luke 9, starting in verse 49, says this. 11 00:01:15,680 --> 00:01:24,680 Master, said John, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us. 12 00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:30,680 Do not stop him, Jesus said, for whoever is not against you is for you. 13 00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:37,680 And then skip ahead to Luke, chapter 11. This is going to be verse 14. 14 00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:41,680 It says this. Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. 15 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:45,680 When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. 16 00:01:45,680 --> 00:01:52,680 But some of them said, By Beelzebub, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons. 17 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:56,680 And then in the next few verses, Jesus explains why that's ridiculous. 18 00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:06,680 So let's skip to verse 23, where he says, Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. 19 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:08,680 Let's pray. 20 00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:13,680 Heavenly Father, we thank you for the scriptures that they have persisted throughout the millennia, 21 00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:17,680 that we still have them to look at, to consider, to learn from. 22 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:21,680 I pray that whatever you have to teach us today, that it would stick, 23 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,680 that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would become stronger, 24 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,680 and that we would become more like your son Jesus. Amen. 25 00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,680 Amen. Thanks, guys. You can have a seat. 26 00:02:32,680 --> 00:02:36,680 All right. So fun topic that we don't talk about all that much, 27 00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:45,680 but it is both an ancient and a modern Christian belief that spiritual darkness can have a physical effect on a person. 28 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:53,680 Now, not all Christian branches believe this. Some don't believe there are any demons at all, 29 00:02:53,680 --> 00:03:00,680 and would say that anything described in such a way in the scriptures is actually just psychosomatic, which I find problematic. 30 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:08,680 The opposite theological end of that concept is that spiritual darkness is a very active, and is very active even now today, 31 00:03:08,680 --> 00:03:16,680 and that any illness of any kind is purely a spiritual issue, which is also problematic. 32 00:03:16,680 --> 00:03:22,680 But it's not only problematic, it can be hurtful, and I think it can become harmful. 33 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:29,680 Now, I personally believe that there is spiritual warfare in the earth, on the earth, even today, 34 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:34,680 because I believe that Jesus dealt directly against it when he was walking with his disciples. 35 00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:43,680 But I don't believe, as they say, that there is a demon in every bush. Have you heard that phrase? 36 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:49,680 Have you ever heard the other phrase, to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail? 37 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:55,680 Yeah, that phrase was coined by a guy named, anybody know? I didn't know who it was by. 38 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,680 Abraham Maslov. But now you know who that is, right? Some of you do. 39 00:04:00,680 --> 00:04:05,680 Some of us know who Abraham Maslov is from the Maslov's dog experiment. 40 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:10,680 All of us are going back to our grade schools and junior high schools thinking, oh, I remember that. 41 00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:17,680 It's the one where dogs learned or were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, 42 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:22,680 because all the other times they heard a bell, they got a treat, right? 43 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:26,680 At first the bell would ring and the dog would have no idea what was going on, 44 00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:31,680 and they'd be given a treat for apparently no reason, and then their mouth would salivate 45 00:04:31,680 --> 00:04:36,680 because that is what happens to mouths when they get food that they like. 46 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:42,680 But then the bell would ring and the dog would salivate before getting a treat, 47 00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:49,680 until eventually the bell would ring, the dog would salivate without getting a treat. 48 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:58,680 They'd been conditioned to associate treats with the bell and their body would physically respond. 49 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:04,680 Some people in some belief systems have read the handful of times in the Gospels 50 00:05:04,680 --> 00:05:14,680 that a demon made someone sick, and they've been conditioned to believe that that must be what is happening all the time. 51 00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:21,680 This isn't far from what Maslov meant about the hammer. 52 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:29,680 What people believe conditions them to see what they want to see, to be one kind of instrument or another. 53 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:34,680 If they become a hammer, and if they think that a demon is the source of every ailment, 54 00:05:34,680 --> 00:05:41,680 then a lot of people are going to get hurt as they're hit by hammers. 55 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:48,680 Sometimes even Jesus gets hit with a hammer. What do I mean? 56 00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:54,680 Alright, so in this passage that we read, Jesus says, who is for me and who is against me? 57 00:05:54,680 --> 00:06:00,680 And both of those times there is something, there is a spiritual warfare event happening. 58 00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:06,680 Both of those passages, that determination of who is with Jesus or who is not with Jesus 59 00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:15,680 was made based on their ability or inability to see something God did and know that it was good or evil. 60 00:06:15,680 --> 00:06:22,680 In the first passage, the disciples are telling Jesus that they saw a guy casting out demons in the name of Jesus, 61 00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:27,680 and I love it, and they go, and we tried to get him to stop Jesus. 62 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:33,680 They have no idea who he is, and we're given the impression that Jesus doesn't know who he is either, 63 00:06:33,680 --> 00:06:36,680 at least that he hadn't met him, he hadn't taught him how to do this. 64 00:06:36,680 --> 00:06:41,680 That this guy just knows that there is something special about the name of Jesus. 65 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:49,680 That evil flees at the mere mention of the name of Jesus, and so this guy is just acting on that. 66 00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:56,680 So Jesus says, hey no, that's good. He's moving in the same direction as us. 67 00:06:56,680 --> 00:07:00,680 The guy is doing good because of me. 68 00:07:00,680 --> 00:07:07,680 That guy knows that my name is the opposite of evil, and so he is for us. 69 00:07:07,680 --> 00:07:13,680 On the other hand, in the second passage, it's Jesus that casts out a demon, 70 00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:20,680 but the people around him, presumably religious leaders and other people that didn't understand what he was doing, 71 00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:27,680 accuse him of being demonic. They see Jesus do something good. 72 00:07:27,680 --> 00:07:35,680 They see evil flee at his command, and they assume that he is evil. 73 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:45,680 They don't understand it because they're a hammer, and Jesus is a nail, and so they swing. 74 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:53,680 See, someone can have no idea who Jesus actually is and do what is right because of him, 75 00:07:53,680 --> 00:08:01,680 and Jesus will say, that guy is on our side. No, don't stop him from doing that good thing. 76 00:08:01,680 --> 00:08:07,680 But someone else can know exactly who Jesus is and see someone do what is right because of him, 77 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:15,680 then accuse that person of partnering with evil because it doesn't fit their theology. 78 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:21,680 Jesus wants us to be more like the first person than the second, 79 00:08:21,680 --> 00:08:29,680 because when we look at good and call it evil, because that good is being done by someone we don't know 80 00:08:29,680 --> 00:08:35,680 or someone we disagree with, we can find ourselves working against God. 81 00:08:35,680 --> 00:08:43,680 This has happened countless times throughout history, countless times throughout the history of the church. 82 00:08:43,680 --> 00:08:51,680 God starts doing something new, and instead of being open to this new good thing, parts of the Christian world, 83 00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:56,680 parts of the church end up calling it bad or evil and trying to stop it, 84 00:08:56,680 --> 00:09:03,680 not knowing that they're setting themselves against the work of the Lord. 85 00:09:03,680 --> 00:09:13,680 And I'll tell you why that happens. It's because we rarely admit just how little of God that we understand, 86 00:09:13,680 --> 00:09:19,680 just how little of God we have yet to experience. 87 00:09:19,680 --> 00:09:27,680 Our knowledge of God is like meeting an elephant in the dark. You guys heard this story? 88 00:09:27,680 --> 00:09:32,680 It's a parable that dates all the way back to a Buddhist text 500 years before Jesus. 89 00:09:32,680 --> 00:09:39,680 And it has countless versions since then, so I'm going to tell a version that is useful for today. 90 00:09:39,680 --> 00:09:48,680 It goes something like this. Imagine a group of people heard that there's this new animal that had been discovered, 91 00:09:48,680 --> 00:09:53,680 and it was being called an elephant. And it's long enough ago that there was no pictures of an elephant, 92 00:09:53,680 --> 00:09:57,680 there was no drawings of an elephant, there was no description of an elephant. 93 00:09:57,680 --> 00:10:03,680 For whatever reason, the people that had the elephant on exhibit were trying to keep it secret, exactly what it was. 94 00:10:03,680 --> 00:10:11,680 As a matter of fact, if you wanted to come see the elephant, you had to visit the elephant in the dark. 95 00:10:11,680 --> 00:10:18,680 Now, so you go with all of your friends, and you all go into this room with the elephant, 96 00:10:18,680 --> 00:10:24,680 and each one of you feels one part of the elephant, the first person who happens, 97 00:10:24,680 --> 00:10:30,680 your friend who just happens to be really into reptiles. We all have that one friend that's really into reptiles. 98 00:10:30,680 --> 00:10:35,680 They ended up at the trunk. Yeah, everyone just thought of that one person, didn't you? Yep. 99 00:10:35,680 --> 00:10:41,680 They end up at the trunk, and they go, well, obviously this elephant is a part of the snake family. 100 00:10:41,680 --> 00:10:47,680 Another person was at the ear and feeling a little hot, they were a little stuffy, they said, it feels like a fan. 101 00:10:47,680 --> 00:10:54,680 A woodworker felt its leg and said the elephant is like a log, it's like a tree trunk. 102 00:10:54,680 --> 00:10:59,680 A stonemason was at the elephant's side and said it's flat like a wall. 103 00:10:59,680 --> 00:11:05,680 A seamstress felt the tail and said it's like strands of string on a rope. 104 00:11:05,680 --> 00:11:10,680 The last person was kind of a fearful person, afraid of the dark, 105 00:11:10,680 --> 00:11:14,680 and shrieked when they bumped into the sharp end of the elephant's tusk. 106 00:11:14,680 --> 00:11:23,680 When they all left the room, they were all convinced by their experience that they knew what an elephant was. 107 00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:32,680 And this is why sometimes we can see something new that God is doing and so easily disagree with it. 108 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:41,680 Because it doesn't feel like the part of God that we have experienced. 109 00:11:41,680 --> 00:11:48,680 Depending on how you grew up, some of you grew up in churches, some of you grew up in Catholic parishes, 110 00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:57,680 some of you grew up Lutheran, some of you grew up like me, Presbyterian, some of you grew up Methodist or Evangelical of some sort. 111 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:01,680 Some of you didn't grow up at all, no, you did grow up. 112 00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:07,680 Some of you didn't grow up in a church, maybe some of you just were always universalistic, 113 00:12:07,680 --> 00:12:14,680 or maybe some of you were a part of another world religion and you had all of these different perspectives. 114 00:12:14,680 --> 00:12:19,680 But you still probably only had one perspective. 115 00:12:19,680 --> 00:12:27,680 And then you put a bunch of people that have all these different experiences of God into the same room with each other. 116 00:12:27,680 --> 00:12:33,680 The goal isn't for people that we meet that have experiences, we've got for us to argue with them and go, 117 00:12:33,680 --> 00:12:46,680 that's not my experience of God, the goal is for us to leave the room and listen to the stories of the other people's experiences. 118 00:12:46,680 --> 00:12:51,680 When we leave the elephant room, we're not meant to argue about what the elephant was like, 119 00:12:51,680 --> 00:13:07,680 we're meant to listen and trust our brothers and sisters to let their stories give more shape to what we believe an elephant is. 120 00:13:07,680 --> 00:13:13,680 There's a quote on our website about what kind of theology that we want to have as a church, 121 00:13:13,680 --> 00:13:19,680 because obviously we're non-denominational, we're not a part of a larger, we're not Methodist, we're not, 122 00:13:19,680 --> 00:13:28,680 there is one, some churches will call themselves inter-denominational just because they know that they branch so many different things between Jen and myself and Chris. 123 00:13:28,680 --> 00:13:35,680 Like we've been a part of a lot of different denominations so we kind of played early on with the idea of maybe calling ourselves that, 124 00:13:35,680 --> 00:13:40,680 but we're not a part of a denomination and so we don't have just one book that we go, 125 00:13:40,680 --> 00:13:51,680 this is exactly, this is the exact theology that we ascribe to and so we want in our public declaration of theology to have a good way of describing it. 126 00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:59,680 There's a theologian from the 17th century named Rupertus Maldinius, he has a quote that says, 127 00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:11,680 In essentials, unity, in non-essentials, liberty, in all things, charity. 128 00:14:11,680 --> 00:14:30,680 Because none of us have experienced every part of the elephant, we can all share in the mystery of how all these extremely different experiences fit together to make one beautiful thing. 129 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:43,680 One of the ways that we remind ourselves of what could be essential is to occasionally, usually on the fifth Sunday of a month, to recite the Nicene Creed together. 130 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:57,680 And what I love is that the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed, they are ancient, they are 1500 years old, they're extremely old and the church globally accepts these. 131 00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:10,680 If you walk into a Methodist church or a Catholic church or a Baptist church, any kind of Christian church across the globe that you walk into will either recite the Nicene or the Apostles Creed together. 132 00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:24,680 There's something uniting about it, but the other thing I love about it is that while it touches on so many things that we can agree on about who God is, it doesn't tell you exactly how to believe those things. 133 00:15:24,680 --> 00:15:28,680 It doesn't tell you how to believe God. 134 00:15:28,680 --> 00:15:41,680 It begins by speaking of how we believe that God the Almighty is creator of heaven and earth, but it doesn't stick you into a quarter about exactly how we did that. 135 00:15:41,680 --> 00:15:59,680 We are meant to draw us back to what we can stand on together without fighting about how we disagree, because sometimes Jesus will do something right in front of us that we've never seen before and so it confuses us. 136 00:15:59,680 --> 00:16:05,680 And our knee-jerk reaction will be to swing a hammer. 137 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:12,680 But we're meant to be a little bit more like the first person than the second. 138 00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:18,680 Openness, tolerance, inviting. 139 00:16:18,680 --> 00:16:22,680 So what I want us to do is to actually say the Nicene Creed together today. 140 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:25,680 It is the fifth Sunday after all. 141 00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:28,680 But let's recite this together. 142 00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:31,680 And it's long, but it's important. 143 00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:35,680 If there's a part that you don't believe or don't agree with, feel free just to not say it. 144 00:16:35,680 --> 00:16:40,680 But let's stand together on all the things that God is pointing us to. 145 00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:50,680 We believe in one God, the Father the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. 146 00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:58,680 We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father. 147 00:16:58,680 --> 00:17:07,680 God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father. 148 00:17:07,680 --> 00:17:14,680 Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. 149 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:21,680 By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man. 150 00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:30,680 For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate. He suffered death and was buried on the third day he rose again. 151 00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:37,680 In accordance with the scriptures, he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 152 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:45,680 He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. 153 00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:53,680 We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. 154 00:17:53,680 --> 00:18:01,680 With the Father and the Son, he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. 155 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:10,680 We believe in one holy, universal, and apostolic church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. 156 00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:18,680 We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. 157 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:23,680 Now it doesn't mean that all of us understand exactly what all of that means. 158 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:31,680 What it means is that we have places to go, places to look at to go. How do we stick together? 159 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:38,680 And when we see things that we don't understand, how do we stay open to what God might be doing? 160 00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:46,680 So that if we go to Jesus and say, Jesus, we saw so and so doing such and such, 161 00:18:46,680 --> 00:19:00,680 that we will accept it when he says, do not stop them, for they are with us. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. 162 00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:09,680 Jesus, I thank you for the way that you were welcoming, that you were inclusive. 163 00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:14,680 But we also learn from the moments that people rejected you. 164 00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:21,680 I pray that we would not find ourselves on the side that is rejecting something new that you're doing. 165 00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:28,680 Even after 2,000 years, I believe that there are still new things that you have to do. 166 00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:35,680 I thank you that we get to be a church, that we get to be community, that we get to carry each other. 167 00:19:35,680 --> 00:20:03,680 I pray that our hearts and our eyes would be open to the new things that you would have us do. Amen.