“Pardon Our Dust”

Yvette and I are living in what is now the third home we have owned together in our marriage. When we were married, we moved in together into an apartment near IH-10 and Huebner Road in San Antonio and following that, when I graduated from UTSA and started to work for IBM in Austin, we lived in our second apartment off of a highway there known as Mopac Expressway and Duval Road. And as we began our trek back to what we call home in Medina County, our journey brought us to our first home. It was located on the Far West Side of San Antonio, outside of Loop 1604, near Sea World. It was a great starter home for us. Three bedrooms, two baths, a little over sixteen hundred square feet, built in the 1980s, which if you didn’t know, was the greatest decade because totally awesome people like myself were born in it.

Here’s a picture of that home on the day we closed. A few things to note is that yes, Yvette and I were a lotta-bit thicker back then. That’s a different story for a different day. But also, notice the lack of curb appeal. That unkept bush, gnarly tree, and the bare dirt yard. The home was visually unappealing but for some twenty-somethings with a one-month-old daughter, it was a great place to start. By the way, we bought that home in 2011 for $120,000. I wonder how much it is worth today. Now, our outlook on that home from the beginning was that it was a starter home…it was going to be a temporary spot for us to stay in until we could find a quiet little slice of country living back home. So we approached that home with an investor’s outlook and we wanted to put in the least amount of money we could to get the most return on our investment.

So we explored… Where would we choose to prioritize our efforts? I’ve shown you the exterior, but if I walked you through the house, everything was original to the 1980s. Some of you know what I’m talking about, right? Those classic brass fixtures. The iconic popcorn cieling. The kitchen appliances that are probably still running well today. And what we discovered in our exploring is that if we wanted to do something on the interior, like a kitchen remodel or a bathroom remodel, it was going to cost. And what we also discovered was that the value of the home wouldn’t really increase significantly beyond that remodel cost.

So, instead, we chose to invest in two places that we thought would have the greatest impact on resale. First, we put in a brand new air conditioner because when you’re buying an established home in Texas, nothing sounds sweeter to the ear than “a brand new a/c.” The other thing we did is we worked on the curb appeal. This is how the house looked when we listed it three years after we bought it. The back looked the same along with a new privacy fence. The house didn’t last long on the market and we made 25% on the sale with just a little lipstick and rouge, as that line from the movie “The War” would say.

Now, I know you’re not here for real estate advice. I know my lane. But I’m sharing this story with you to ask you and to ask us,

Where is renovation taking place in your life?

That may strike you as an odd question, but for now, let’s understand it through the lens of my first home. No matter how long you’ve been attending Christian church services, you’ve probably have some idea that Jesus is concerned with cleaning up your life, but what I want you to consider right now is where is that clean up taking place? Is it taking place in your interior life or on the exterior of your life?

Allow me to speak to these renovations for a moment by first pointing out that

Exterior-only renovations are shallow

We should remind ourselves that our text this morning is a continuation of Jesus teaching in a mixed crowd of people who had just witnessed him exorcise a demon from a man. Numerous people witnessed Jesus cast out the demon and some marveled. It’s like in those moments where we have undeniably seen a miracle, and we respond with the inability to muster anything more than an “Oh my.” And while some marveled, others questioned Jesus and even more demanded that Jesus show them something to really prove who he was. And Jesus applies some basic logic to those two dissenting pockets of people in the crowd that helped the people then and helps us rightly conclude that the authority and power that Jesus cast out that demon in was none other than the authority and power of God Almighty.

Now, we aren’t absolutely certain who those two groups are because Luke doesn’t tell us. Like, we cannot say with certainty that these were Pharisees or the scribes or whoever. But it may be fair to say that these people had some exposure to the Bible in their day because, well, one group knew something about Satan and that he was bad, while the other group knew something about miracles of God. And in Jesus’ logical teaching, he says Luke 11:20 “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And then he adds, in

Luke 11:23 ESV

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

In other words, it’s not possible to be on the fence about Jesus. You can’t tell yourself that you’ll just be middle of the road with this Jesus character. When it comes to the claims of Jesus, you either fully accept them or you fully reject them. Or saying it as the Baptist missionary Hudson Taylor put it,

“Christ is either Lord of all, or is not Lord at all.”

Hudson Taylor

Jesus is saying that when the kingdom of God comes upon you, when the gospel is preached, your only options are to surrender your all to Christ and his rule as King of all or your other option is to completely reject him. There’s no concept of halfway. And it’s with this in mind that we propel forward to what Jesus continues on by now adding

Luke 11:24 (ESV)

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’

I want to explain Luke 11:24 using the example of the man Luke tells us about in Luke 11:14. Make no mistake, Jesus did in fact cast out that demon of hell. That demon was no longer residing within the man, and the deliverance was an act of God. Jesus is not the only person in the Bible to cast out demons, but Jesus is making it clear that anyone who has cast out a demon has done so because God has chosen to move in that way through that person at that time. And Jesus is saying here in Luke 11:24 that just because he or others have cast demons out of people, does not mean the people demons were cast out of are God’s children simply because God moved in their life in that way. The kingdom of God has come upon that person who was once demon-possessed and is no longer, but that does not make the person a citizen of God’s kingdom. How can we conclude this? Notice that Luke doesn’t tell us that the man of Luke 11:14 repented of his sin and called upon Jesus Christ to save him from his sin. But what does it say about the man?

Luke 11:14b–c (ESV)

‌When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke…

Do you know what this guy immediately looked like to everyone? Like he had been made healthy. I mean, he was talking again. It’s like coming to church and listening to the message every Sunday or the Bible study on Wednesday night and hearing God’s word taught but only taking the moralisms of the Bible. The Bible is full of moral instruction or saying that another way, the word of God has much to say about how people should be living. Probably the most known moral instruction in the Bible are the Ten Commandments, wouldn’t you say?

Let’s talk about a hypothetical person named Tim. Tim is a guy who starts coming to church because he and his wife want to improve their marriage. Tim’s also never said it, but he’s carrying some stuff he’s not proud of and he has heard enough about God to know that humanity isn’t alone, so he’s gonna do his best to make things right with God. What Tim’s secret is when he starts coming to church is that he’s been cheating on his wife for the past few months. And at some point in Tim’s first few weeks of attending church, somehow he comes in contact with the Ten Commandments and it’s number seven that sticks out to him. Here it is:

Exodus 20:14 (ESV)

You shall not commit adultery.

So Tim’s hit right between the eyes. He knows without a doubt where he’s come up short with God and he goes right home and ends that extramarital relationship. Good, right? Not exactly. The kingdom of God has come upon Tim in the proclamation of God’s word that exposed him to commandment number seven, but at this point, he’s in no different position than what Jesus is talking about in Luke 11:24 where “… the unclean spirit has gone out …” Tim has undergone an exterior remodeling. He’s maybe pulled some stickers from his yard, but at the heart of his home, the things that contributed to his pursuit of an affair haven’t been addressed.

We don’t talk much about emotional health, but we need to. Our emotional responses to situations are shaped by what we are exposed to in life. We learn to respond in situations based on how we’ve seen others respond in similar situations. Just like my fictional character, Tim. Under the covers, Tim’s had some family history with adultery. His dad cheated on his mom all the time. Tim learned from his dad’s example that when women frustrate their husbands, anger that results in marital betrayal is acceptable behavior. Also, Tim was exposed to pornography as a young man, so he’s been taught to believe that women are objects for a male’s pleasure, setting aside the truth that women are human beings who equally share with men in bearing the image of God. So when Tim’s wife doesn’t meet his demands, his frustration builds, and his eye wanders. And the scary part is that Tim believes that he’s doing well, living rightly before God, because he’s living by a new moral standard of, “Look. Don’t touch.”

So Tim and his wife, they keep going to church, but do you know what’s not happening? Their marriage hasn’t improved a lick. Tim’s wife begins to share with some of her new friends at the women’s Bible study that her husband appears to be angrier than ever. And as for Tim, that straying eye has given way to regularly viewing porn. Tim’s even now beginning to flirt with a coworker in text messages. He knows deep-down that if the opportunity presents itself, he’s not going to restrain himself with her.

What’s going on with Tim? That unclean spirit Jesus taught about leaving, has come back. It’s come back in full force with some demon buddies. Tim worked on his exterior life but what really needed renovation was never addressed. And this time, when Tim gives in to those unhealthy emotional issues and those temptations, he’ll tell his wife about what he’s been doing. In his anger, he’ll tell his wife how his co-worker is exactly the woman he deserves.

Exterior renovations are shallow. Our lives need a deeper work.

You know, in his thirty three years of life, Jesus learned the trade of being a carpenter. I think that’s important to bring up right now because with this theme of renovation, it puts flesh and bones on the ability of Jesus. It allows me to move us to this:

Surrender begins the work of deep renovation

Jesus told those two groups that questioned his authority Luke 11:20 “But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Can I suggest to you that in both last week’s passage and this week’s passage, Jesus is telling us something about the kingdom of God. What’s he telling us, we wonder?

It was commonly understood in Jesus’ day that people could be possessed by fallen angels who we also refer to as demons. These demons could keep people from speaking or could inflict other terrible conditions like blindness or the inability to walk or even exhibiting a behavior that anyone would consider to be crazy. And if you and I were transported back in time to that age and we grew up in that society and we were told and maybe even saw with our own eyes things like this, we would have some sense that demon’s possessing certain people was just a part of life. We may not like it and we may even fear being subject to being possessed, but we would all understand that to be the way the world is.

This is no different than things we have come to just accept that go on in our day. We don’t like it, but women are objectified in our society. We don’t like it, but the lust for power is the highest end. We don’t like it, but the divide between the have’s and the have-not’s only grows wider with every generation. And whether we were walking the dusty streets of Palestine in the first century or the bumpy roads of Devine in the twenty-first century, our perception is that all of our life experiences combined…the good, the bad, the ugly…that we’re looking out on life with everything standing right-side up.

Do you know what I mean when I say that? When we put together all of what we know in life and we just say, “That’s the way life is…” we’re saying that everything is ultimately positioned right-side up. The children who are exposed to infidelity in marriage. The passing of porn to kids. Shootings in schools. Hurricanes that erase cities from the map. Just a part of life.

And where we dismiss the bad and the ugly as a part of life in a world where we assume everything is right-side up, Jesus is saying that everything about this world is upside-down. It’s been upside-down since humanity chose to reject God in the Garden of Eden. And when Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God coming upon you, he’s talking about certain things in this upside-down world being set right. He’s talking about how things will be completely and lastingly when he returns and brings the full force of the kingdom with him. Demons taking up residence in people? Not so in God’s kingdom! People committing the sin of adultery? Not so in God’s kingdom! The objectification of people? Not so in God’s kingdom!

The hymn, “Amazing Grace” famously includes the line, “I once was blind, but now I see.” Included in the depth of that verse is the truth that when the kingdom doesn’t just come upon any one of us, but when the kingdom is received, God enables us with eyes to see the upside-down nature of so many things around us that we were once blind to. Like how Tim, in our hypothetical story, remained blind to the real renovation that needed to take place.

What renovation is that? Jesus tells us, beginning in

Matthew 5:27 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

Matthew 5:28 (ESV)

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Of course, this is Jesus speaking to the source of the particular sin of Tim in our story, but there at the end is where the renovation needed to take place. Not the superficial, exterior stuff, but the deep work that changes the desires of our hearts and rewires our ways of thinking.

See, what happened to the mute man in the previous passage and to our character Tim is that they saw a glimpse of kingdom things. Their lives got tidied up for a minute, but they broke under the weight of trying to carry the moral commands of God themselves. That superficial renovation in their lives…it was a DIY job and it didn’t come with any warranty. It wasn’t work done by the hand of the Master Carpenter whose name is Jesus.

Remember my family’s starter home when we bought it? Here it is again, this time with baby Bethany with us. Yvette and I did what we could do to keep our costs down while seeking to improve the curb appeal. We did that work of cleaning up the outside all ourselves. We cut out that terrible bush. We trimmed back the live oaks in the front and back. We killed off the weeds, leveled the yards, and laid grass, but if I could speak to the reality of that home…it wasn’t ideally functional for us. It wasn’t functional because things on the inside, where our family actually lived, never got touched. And those interior things would never would get touched because, for us, the price was too great for us to get the contractors to do the work and also, I’m no good at that sorta work myself. Ironically, do you know what was the only thing that I had the experience with and the confidence to contribute to any of that interior work in that home? The most that I could contribute to any project was demolition. I was confident I could tear some things apart.

Isn’t that true of us when we try to “work on ourselves”? We can tear out some of the less favorable aspects of our lives, but we aren’t renovators of our hearts. We lay out some steps for improvement and we get one step down the line only to fall backwards three or four. I can assure you that coming to church and applying the moral teachings of Christianity to your life will produce some good things in your life. You might think about your insecurities less and so you might drink less or you might cuss less. You might pause playing the comparison game with others in your physical appearance or quality of adulting or parenting. But I can also assure you that those improvements won’t last because their root hasn’t been addressed.

Here’s the promise of the gospel, my friends. If any one would come to the end of themselves… If anyone would realize that they’ve been going about things all wrong… If anyone would admit that they can’t do it themselves and that they need to be saved from themselves and their sin… If anyone would admit that Jesus is the only one who can save… Then begins the work of addressing the root. Then the Master Carpenter begins working in your life, remodeling room by room. And do you know what else?

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

That Master Carpenter isn’t going to pack up his tools mid-project and leave you hanging. He’s going to work and work and work, rewiring the way you think, fixing the way you see the world, helping you hear his voice among the noise.

Do you know what else? Do you know what this Master Carpenter charges you for his work? Nothing. It’s all on him. He paid the price at Calvary’s cross. If you surrender to him, I cannot promise you that you won’t encounter disruptions as the remodeling takes place in your life, but I can assure you that you will come to know joy and fulfillment and satisfaction. Those are Jesus, the Master Carpenter’s, promises.

This series is that we’re currently in is called “Marching Onward. Together.” This church is moving where the Lord leads us and yet, there are any number of challenges that can come along and derail God’s choosing to work through us to advance his kingdom. With what we’ve covered recently in Luke, I believe that what follows the Model Prayer that opens Luke 11 are threats to the unity that should exist among God’s children. And what we’re dealing with this morning is the threat that can come from a congregation that has people who are playing Christian and people who are Christian.

People can be playing Christian or they can be Christian. Let me be clear about the difference. Neither are people who are perfect in any way. Both have seen the work of God. They’ve come to church. They’ve heard the gospel. The kingdom of God has come unto them. And the people who are Christian are those who have thrown themselves upon the mercies of God in Christ, begging for salvation from their sin because they’ve encountered the Living God and responded to him in faith. The people who are playing Christian are those who have seen God’s handiwork, liked what they’ve seen, and have decided to take a stab at doing that same work themselves. You’ve heard it said that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” But the problem when it comes to Christianity is that there are too many imitators that are trying to live some cheap, knockoff version of the faith. It won’t hold up. It won’t because in playing Christian, in imitating Christ’s renovating work, there was never a response to the kingdom invitation, just some version of the expression, “That’s nice. I’ll try to do it myself.”

Now, I’m not intending to launch some sort of witch hunt. That’s not the point. But I am inviting us to look inwardly where only we and God know us and really evaluate if we’ve truly turned over everything to him. Honestly answer for yourself… As you walk the halls of your inner-person, can you see that it is Jesus Christ who has been renovating your heart? Or is everything in there covered with mold and held together by barbed-wire and duct tape? Because for God to continue to find this church suitable for kingdom work and for God to sustain us through where he wants to take us,

We must be a people being renovated by Jesus

It won’t make anyone of us perfect. It won’t make this church perfect. But if we are under renovation by Jesus, we can say to others, “pardon our dust” because the Master Carpenter is at work in each of us, leading the way.

You may be someone who has been playing Christian, struggling to carry the weight of living out God’s moral commands. There’s hope for you. Imagine a thief who walks into a church on Sunday, sees a list of the Ten Commandments, and trembles in fear at the words Exodus 20:15 “You shall not steal.” That thief, coming under conviction of the Holy Spirit, repents of his or her sin and receives the offer of new life in Christ. Do you know what happens? From that point moving forward, they aren’t playing Christian, they are Christian. And from that point forward, when they read Exodus 20:15, it means something different. What was being prohibited… “You must not steal” becomes a promise from Jesus to that former thief… For them it reads, “You will not steal.” What changed? The heart.

Friends, this is the case for everyone who calls on Jesus as Lord. Why don’t you call on Jesus as Lord today? We must be a people who are being renovated by Jesus. Why don’t you surrender to him so that he can begin the work of renovating you from the inside, out?