Pastor Cal Lord's Recent Sermons
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The Word That Changes Lives
Mark 1:21-28 January 29, 2006
I want to thank Nancy for sharing that beautiful piece this morning. I know it makes my
job a lot easier. Between the singing of the choir and the great music we have today, the
good fellowship we are experiencing in worshipping together and now this vocal rendering
of the scripture story, I could sit down and you could go home satisfied.
It is the same formula I used to use when I was in seminary and was asked to fill the
pulpit in various churches. I’d always have Lori sing just before I preached. I knew that it
would take the pressure off because whatever I had to say after that would be accepted
with grace because the people already had been blessed and had something to take home
with them. God is so good!
Well this morning I want to talk about words. I know as a preacher I am called to be a
wordsmith. But the truth is that all of us who take the Great Commission in Matthew 28
seriously, the call to go into the world and make disciples, have to be able to take the word
and make it real for the people we are reaching out to. We are called to use words to build
up, to encourage, to exhort and to extend an invitation to people to turn around and come
back to God. Words are the currency that fuels the life changing ministry that God has
given us.
When you look at Peter in Acts 2 and see that this simple man spoke so brilliantly, that
when the Holy Spirit came upon him, over three thousand people were saved and brought
into the church that day. Or check out the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunich. Phillip
simply read him the stories and explained who Jesus was and the man opened up his heart
and decided to be baptized. Time after time we see man and woman sharing a word and
miracles happening.
Yet, today we sit here in church in 2006 and think that our words have little power to do
anything. We feel impotent to make much of a difference in society. We look at the great
heroes of faith and tend to believe that the power they had, has passed us by.
But you know what; a word on the lips of the right person can change lives. Think about
it. Words have incredible power.
When a woman looks across the aisle at a man and says, “I do” their relationship
changes from that day forward.
When a doctor looks up at a new mom and dad and says, “It’s a girl!” their lives
will be enriched in ways they never thought possible.
When a keynote speaker addresses the crowd and says, “Congratulations
graduate!” a door of possibilities open that has never been explored before.
When Donald Trump says, “You’re fired!” you become one of the most famous
people on television!
When the emergency room doctor looks you in the eye and says, “He’s gone” a
part of you might also die that day, but for the comfort of God.
When the CBS announcer says, “Wide right. No Good.” It means the Pittsburgh
Steelers are going to the Super Bowl and the host of this year’s Super Bowl party at
church gets to wear his jersey at the game.
One or two words can change everything! It is not necessarily the words themselves, but
rather it is the authority of the person speaking them makes all the difference.
In our text today we see Jesus in the synagogue. Now I’m sure that he spoke among the
crowds a few times before he went to Capernaum. He had drawn a following. He had
made an impact on some of his hearers and called his first disciples. But Mark tells us that
in Capernaum he went into the synagogue to preach.
(Just an aside… I know that I don’t think of Jesus as a preacher in the traditional way. Yet
it only makes sense that as his gifts were being recognized that he would be involved in
religious life as a teacher and leader in the synagogue. Mark gives us that look behind the
scenes here. Early on he must have been a very popular guest in the synagogues. Inviting
him to teach would be like having T.D. Jakes or Joel Osteen in your pulpit. So here he is
taking the seat of honor and preaching the morning message.)
The funny thing is that when he was done the people were astonished at his teaching. (I
have a colleague who jokes that when he goes away, he makes it a point not to get anyone
too good to fill the pulpit.) Well the leaders in Capernaum made that mistake. As we read
the text it says that Jesus spoke with the kind of authority that their leaders didn’t have.
They would quote sayings from the past and rehash old messages. They would play word
games and chastise the people. Yet it was always the same old rote way of thinking. Jesus
on the other hand challenged them. He pushed them to think about God in new ways. He
changed the context, he challenged the status quo, and he pushed them to think outside of
the tradition. When he said it, it touched them deeply.
Looking back, it is easy to see why they felt that way. After all he had authority, the
authority of God himself.
For in John’s gospel in the prologue, it says, 1:1 ¶ In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from
the Father.
God’s word, the word that God used to create, the authoritative word of God that brought
things into existence, that word was incarnate in Jesus. So Jesus came to Capernaum and
all the cities afterwards with a word of liberation, a word of comfort, a word of release,
and a word of pardon at the very beginning of his public ministry.
I’ve got good news for you. You and I are called to share that same news today. We can
claim the same authority as Jesus. Whenever we stand up to tell someone about God, we
can claim his authority because we stand on His word. That’s what Peter, Phillip, Paul and
other Christians down through the ages have done and we can claim it too.
Now it’s one thing to have authority. It’s another to have power. Every week I get into the
pulpit and I can claim the authority of God’s word as I speak. But I sometimes wonder if
my words have any power. I like the story told by Pastor Louis Valbracht in his book, Exit
Interstate 0. He talks about the power of his preaching in a cute little story from his early
days in the pulpit. He says,
"It was in the early years of my ministry that one Sunday I had just gotten well into the
sermon, when a baby started to cry down in one of the front pews. The mother, very
much embarrassed, snatched up the baby and started out the aisle. I stopped right in my
sermon, and I said, ’Madam you don’t have to take that baby out. He isn’t bothering me.’
She said, ’No?’ Well, you’re certainly bothering him.’
I wonder how many babies I have bothered. I wonder how many adults I have bothered.
Well in our text today we see the power of Jesus’ words. He is met by a deranged man.
The text says that he had a demon in him and he was beside himself. And we read that
Jesus spoke a word, and the demon left him.
That is power, a power to bring healing strength and forgiveness into the life of that man.
The truth is that we have that same power today. The scripture says that Jesus spoke a
word and a demon was vanquished.
Some of you know my story. My mother was an alcoholic and she left us when I was
only ten years old. She spent the next four years living from month to month in flea bag
motels and cheap apartments. She was literally a lost soul trying to figure out where her
next drink was going to come from. She worked the bars in New London and was so bad
off that she willingly gave up custody of her two children because she couldn’t take care
of her self, never mind anyone else. You might not say that she had a demon in her in the
same way the man in our scripture did, but she was demonized by drink.
When I read this passage of scripture I think of my mother and hundreds of others who
have been demonized by alcohol, drugs and other addictions. Many of them have given up
hope and settled underneath the bridges and under cardboard boxes in alley ways of our
cities. I sometimes wonder if there is there any hope for them.
On that day when Jesus entered the synagogue in Capernaum, most of the good religious
folk in that city certainly didn’t think so. They took the poor and disenfranchised for
granted as part of the landscape of city living. But Praise God that Jesus didn’t see things
that way. When he was confronted by the man, he looked him in the eye and with all the
power and authority in heaven, he healed the man and sent his demons scurrying.
I want to tell you that the good news is that we have that same authority today. I’ve seen
miracles happen when the word of God was preached.
My mother showed up on the doorstep of the Lakes Pond Baptist Church on Route 85 in
Chesterfield. It is a conservative, fundamental church that I would not feel comfortable in,
but one Sunday something prompted my mother to go there and I believe her life was
changed. A powerful word was spoken and her demons vanquished. She wrote me a
letter shortly after that experience and told me about going to the church and having a life
changing experience. She was going to start over, begin a new life and get away from her
past. Call it born again or whatever you want. She was a new woman like the man in our
story today.
The truth is that we do have a word that can change lives. We have the power to save
people, not just for heaven, but for living life today. Don’t ever take it for granted. We can
cast demons out. We can bind marriages together. We can heal the sick because we stand
on the word of God.
Finally, because Jesus has authority, because he has power, because his words do affect
our lives, then we are people who can live with hope. Hope that things can be changed,
things can be different, things, lives, people can be made whole through the authority and
power of Jesus Christ. We can live life as victor instead of victims because of the hope we
have in Jesus Christ to redeem our lives.
Maxie Dunnam says in her book, Dancing at My Funeral, "I am dancing in the face of
tragedy over which I have no control except to trust God and life and circumstance. I am
able to live in the presence of death because I trust myself as a victor rather than a victim."
You see Jesus is our stairway across the brokenness of life. He moves us a little higher,
closer to him, as we allow him to bring hope, power, authority, release, forgiveness,
renewal, and cleansing into our lives.
Amen
Are You Hoping For?
The First Baptist Church of Norwich