Matthew 12:43–45Scripture
Chapter 12 verse 43–45.
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest but finds none.
Then it says, "I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order." Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than it. That's terrifying. And they enter the and dwell there. And the last state of the person is worse than the first.
So also will it be with this evil generation. Oh man.
Introduction
So let me draw some connecting lines. This is a challenging text. Let me draw some connecting lines. What's happening here? He's speaking what will happen to this evil generation. An evil generation he's speaking about is this one that demands a sign. It's a generation that has Christ standing right before them. But instead of entering into a relationship with the one who came, they are more enamored with good works.
Their focus is wearing religious garb, functioning with religious behavior and living moral lives.
Matter of fact, it's become the banner that they hang over their life. We are who we are because of what we have done. We are who we are because of the choices that we have made. And so that becomes their banner. Today I might say that in the church specifically we are have a particular fixation on getting people to move from point A to point B.
And that movement is to see lives changed and go from being a slave of certain behaviors and certain addictions and certain problems to being set free from those problems. And honestly, that's good. I think it's wonderful to consider that somebody's life might be better. But today, this text speaks of the danger of prioritizing morality over relationship. With God.
And today there exists even in the church today a great danger of prioritizing morality over all things and we chase th that we chase that and it's dangerous it's wildly dangerous. I would propose to you today
It is more dangerous to be moral than to be a sinner undone.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 3:15
That one probably made you think a little bit, didn't it? You're like, I'm not sure I agree with that. See, a sinner undone knows they're a sinner undone. A moral person, somebody who's made a lot of good choices, can begin to think that they're saved, right? And that person might position themselves because of their choices, because of their morality. It might position that person to never reach out to Christ because they think they've already received him.
I propose to you today that this type of morality is more dangerous than sinful debauchery. And so he speaks to this. He's speaking to the Pharisees of the day who have basically called people to this type of living.
The reality is he's just recently told the Pharisees, "you live moral lives, but you're snakes and vipers and you're terrible people." In other words, you can appear to be something and not be something. You can attend church for 20 years. You can know all of the Christian language. You can worship your heart out in front of people. You can serve in the life of the church. You can lead Sunday school classes, small groups.
You can be the person in church that everybody comes to for counsel. And you can think you're saved. You can think you're godly. You can think you're used by Christ but not even know him.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 4:49
That's terrifying. Honestly, springing off the words of these this page and this particular text is a warning to not only the generation he was speaking to then, but it is a warning to the generation sitting in the room today.
And it should be a sobering one. It should be a sobering one. Being moral doesn't save you. Giving up alcohol doesn't save you. Stop you stopping using four-letter words that don't save you. Men who are unfaithful to their wives, you begin to be faithful to your wives. That doesn't save you. Morality in and of itself is not saving.
It doesn't save you. And this is what Jesus is talking about. Now, you want to talk about things and I and of course in my study I wanted to I wanted to go off on things like why do demons roam in dry areas? Do they hate water? And is that why cats hate water? And so I was kind of, you know, they have like so many lives and stuff and it's because another demon possesses them. And you know, I had all this whole plan. You sprinkle a cat with water, you know, and so, you know, it's a manifestation of a demon. They like dry stuff.
That's not the point of this text, but I had to say it anyway. I had to say it anyway. It was part of my study. It's not the point of this text. And you can get hung up on all of that.
Can I just say the point of this text is you're a house and you're owned by someone.
You're owned by someone. You know what's terrifying about this is that
You can be a moral person and your house can be clean and swept up with moral behavior and you still be owned by Satan.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 7:24
That should terrify you today. It should. And I think the intention of this text is to help you contemplate your own life and consider who owns you.
And the evidence of that ownership is not the choices you make. That's not the evidence of that. There is a moral malfeasance today and that's the name of my Scripture that's happening across this generation.
It's a moral malfeasance.
We have leveraged morality in the church to the degree that we have invited people to a life that places them far from Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 8:26
They trust in their morality more than they trust in his saving graces. Can I just go ahead and break this down for you and in a way that will help you? If you begin today to live morally astute lives and to make all the right choices and you truly don't make any more mistakes from now until your death, you're still hellbound if you're not saved and justified and redeemed by Christ's gift.
Because you were born a sinner. You were born property of Satan. That's what Scripture tells us. So if you choose today to sweep up your life and to live clean, you're still bound to hell.
Or what does that tell us? We have much need of something and it is more than your behavior changing. There needs to be an ownership shift. You being owned by Satan to being owned by Christ. Just real quickly, I got three points. It's going to go quick. Brook's not even down there, so I don't have to beat her. But my son's down there preaching, so let's see if we can whoop up on him and beat him. By the way, he preached this on youth, and he killed it. It was amazing. Probably should have had him preach today.
Point 1Don't mistake a clean life for a new one
Number one,
Don't mistake a clean life for a new one.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 10:11
They are not the same. Listen to this. When the unclean spirit had gone out of the person, it had gone out. The unclean spirit had gone out of the house.
And then if you go on to verse 44, it says, "then when he wandered around in dry places and couldn't find anything, I will return to my house, and when I and when it comes, it finds the house swept and in order." Track with me. There are a lot of people in churches today whose house is swept and in order.
There are people who standing behind pulpits today whose houses are swept and in order, but they are still owned by Satan.
Now this is tricky because although morality can be man benevolent benevolent it can be dangerous not all morality is bad I would appreciate it if you didn't kill me in do not murder. I would appreciate it if you love your neighbor as yourself. I'd appreciate that. But that is not saving in and of itself. It's not because at some point in your life, you have broken part of the law. And if you've broken part of it, you've broken all of it. And you have desperate need of a savior fa savior.
The Bible says this, and I think this is important. You need new life, not a clean one. The Bible says you're dead and your sin and your trespasses. You can clean a dead person and it's still a stinking situation. You can have whitewashed tombs and it still be a tomb. It's dead. You're dead. What you need is not to be cleaned. What you need is new life.
And you can't get new life by doing good stuff. You get new life by trusting in him. And here's what it says in Scripture, just so you know. And I think this is particularly pertinent in this text.
Jesus said that he died and he purchased your salvation. He purchased it. It's a shift of ownership. He purchased your house.
You need him to purchase your house, not just purge it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:36
Some of you come to church and you want him to purge your life. That's good. You know, take my bad speech and take my cancer and I need you to purge the problems and take my promiscuity and own my eyes and have all those things and you want me to purge these behaviors and you cry for that and you pray for that and you sing worship songs hoping for that. But a purging is not saving.
Purging makes you empty, makes you cleansed, but it's not saving. You need to be purchased.
You know what we learned here? That if you're purged, but you're empty. If you're purged and there's not an ownership change, if you're purged and you're still Satan's, if the devil's gone for a bit and you're clean and you're purged, you're still his.
You can be purged and not be saved. There has to be a shift of ownership. How does that happen? Jesus purchased you as a price. Wh how do we how does he purchase us? Well, he died to deliver you from your sin. But here's the catch. You must believe that he is Christ and place your faith in him.
And then there's a transfer of ownership. You're made new. You're purchased at a price.
There is a danger of being morally reformed without spiritual regeneration.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 15:17
And there's a lot of people in the church who are morally reformed and not spiritually regenerated. Oh man. Can I just stop for a second? It was a great struggle growing up in my life to understand how it was that somebody could be in the church for 15 to 20 to 30 years. Then not just walk away from the church because they got mad about something, but walk away from Christ himself. That's right.
That was perplexing to me. And then there's all kinds of theological ramifications about that. We began to try to figure out, can you give back your salvation?
Can you lose your salvation? All kinds of conversations circle around this kind of thinking. But I would propose to you today that there are people in the church who look godly, who seem like they're Christians, who seem like they're abiding, who look like they're messengers of light, but in fact are not.
It's not because they stay in the church or they leave the church. It's because they reject Christ.
You can sing about him one moment and reject him in a second moment.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:58
And that rejection is not necessarily a new thing because you once accepted him and now you rejected him. Ladies and gentlemen, you were fooled yourself to think you ever accepted him.
You don't just reject him. You just don't give up your ownership. No house has control to determine who owns it.
When Christ purchases you, when he purchases you with his blood, you are his. You're his.
Point 2Don't mistake changed behavior for changed ownership
Number two, verse 44, it says, and I love this. I will return. This is the terrifying part. I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Don't mistake changed behavior for changed ownership.
Young people, listen to me today. It is easy to come to church and behave a certain way because it's expected of you. And a lot of a lot of times young and this isn't just with young people but it's specifically with young people because a lot of their life even all the way through high school and college a lot of their life in the earlier years is this is how you behave at school.
This is how you behave at home. This is how you behave with your coach. This is how you behave at your new job. This is how you behave at church. And those behaviors are not necessarily in alignment. This is how you behave with your friends. This is how you behave in private text messages. This is how we behave. And so, everyone in life is lining out for you how you should behave. And let me just say this. Let me say this. The church has its own thing. It's telling you of how you should behave.
Here's the danger.
Because we have such in us such a desperate desire to belong, we then attach our behavior with belonging.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 19:33
If I behave a certain way, I will belong. Young people at school, you know that you can belong in a group if you dress a certain way, you behave a certain way, you talk a certain way, and you live and do what's expected in that group.
Right. When I was younger, and I think this probably changed some over the years, but I'm old. So back in the day, we in our lunchroom, we literally had sections. You knew this was punk kids. Not because they're punks, because punk rock was a thing and they dress a certain way like so not they might have been some of them might have been punks, but there was a punk section. There was a nerd section. And the nerd section had sections within sections. It was 0.1 A, B, C, and D.
They had different types of nerds. Can I get an amen? Then you had the athletic section and the sec that section had certain behaviors that it had the basketball guys and the football guys. Are you with me? And the golf guys. And some of them were multiple guys because they would do cross country and they would do golf and they would do basketball or you know and then we had band and then we had football and some football players did band. And so they would pick where they would sit. And I watched them, their behavior changed as they moved group to group.
You could see somebody who was on the football team sitting with the football guys and they would act like the football guys, but then the next day they would hang out with their band friends and they would sit over in the band section and their behavior would totally change because we want to belong somewhere.
And it's no different in the church. Young people, older people, listen to me today. We don't come and join a fellowship and just not care if we belong. So behavior modification happens because of our longing to belong. And this is wildly dangerous because there is a difference between you behaving a certain way to belong and truly belonging to Christ.
There is a difference between wanting to belong and be welcomed by people and wanting to belong and be welcomed by Christ. Yeah. And the people of the church are not Christ. Not everyone in here is saved.
That's a fact, Jack. I know it's a it's shocking, but it's a fact. The Pharisees weren't saved. And to hang around a Pharisee, there were certain behaviors. There were certain the actions. There was certain things you had to do to be welcomed into that fellowship. And that fellowship was belonging to something that Christ was rejecting. He's speaking when he speaks of a house, he's speaking of the generation.
Don't let your longing to belong change your behavior. Let your true belonging to Christ make you a new creation.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 23:17
Those are two totally different things. The danger of remaining under the dominion of darkness despite outward improvement is terrifying. This house was owned by Satan and Satan wasn't living in it.
For a while. And can I just say this? And maybe you'll disagree with me and maybe I'll disagree with me too if you come up and present a good argument. But let me just go ahead and say this. I tried to figure this out and work it to its natural conclusion all the way to the end where it was unmistakable to argue with me about this thing. But I'm saying you might present an argument that I would change my mind. So just take this and do what you will and then we can have a conversation later. And I'm if you have present good irrefutable evidence, I will shift my position. But let me just say this. There are people who have strong addictions with something. They go to a rehab and what they've done is they get delivered right from that addiction only to pick up three more.
They swept the house, but they're still owned by Satan. Are you with me today? How many of you have ever experienced somebody who's gone through a rehab? And I'm not even hating on that. I think it's wonderful to be set free from one addiction, but is the point really to pick up three more? Is that the point? Is it to loose dependency off one thing and pick up dependency on three others?
And by the way, if you think I'm just talking about drugs, let me just let me just say this. You can be delivered, okay, from let me just go to the hardest one, crack rock, and you can become an egomaniac.
You're like, "I thought you were going to do a harder one like LSD or something." Like he went from crack rock to LSD or methamphetamines to LSD. No, he went from one addiction to another. We have people in the church that they're they look morally astute, but they're egomaniacs. And then what they do is they're a lot like the Pharisees. And this is what he's talking about. Then they take their religious garb, their religious behavior, and they use it to platform themselves so that everybody thinks they're awesome.
The arrogance to take the things of God and platform yourself. Who are these types of people? Well, they're the types of people who can't ever do anything in private, but must let everyone know the wonderful thing they're doing.
I'm free. I've cleaned up my life. I should be looked at in the church and appreciated for the morality of my life and how beautifully astute I live and how I can be trusted in the church while at the same time being an egomaniac and using the things of God to glorify you, not him.
It's very easy to feel like you're owned by Christ but still be ruled by Satan.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:16
It's very easy to look at your life and see that so much has been cleans cle cleansed up and your life is empty of all of this promiscuity and addiction and all these things. Look at my house. It is in order. Look at my family. It is in order. Look at my job. It's in order. Look at my bank account. It's cleaned up and it's in order. I have a savings account for emergencies. Everything in my life is in order. Look at my closet. All my clothes are clean.
I don't have five laundry baskets and I can't tell which one's a clean one and which one's a dirty one anymore. Everything's in order. Look at the way that I hang my shirts. They're all in one direction with the top button one inch apart. It's in order. My life is in order. See,
Sometimes we want to control everything around us because we think that the deliverance to our problem is order.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 28:23
Want to control everything. The people that are the most controlling should be do the most. Soulsearching today. Track with me today. I have a natural proclivity to this today. I don't know about you, but the things of God you don't control.
A person who defaults to morality is somebody who has to be in control of everything.
You should do some soulsearching today. Have you exchanged true life transformation for morality? Your house may look in order. Your life may look in order, but you still might be Satan's. That's what Christ is saying
Point 3Don't mistake an empty house for a safe one
today. Number three,
Don't mistake an empty house for a safe one.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:29
The danger of great greater spiritual ruin. There's danger of greater spiritual ruin when Christ is absent. Oh man, when Christ is absent, I Oh my goodness. I mentioned this probably a couple months ago and I'll just mention this and then we'll close. We just saw in Scripture in I think earlier in this chapter, if it wasn't in the beginning of chapter 12, I think it was at the end of chapter 11, Jesus delivers someone of demon possession.
Now, our assumption here is that person's saved. That's our assumption. But then we move to the end of this chapter and he says it's possible to be delivered and still be property of Satan. Now this just this is perplexing to me. I have all kinds of questions. I don't know if you have some questions regarding this, but I have some questions. Why would God deliver people from his demon and leave them empty?
Why would he cast out a devil out of a life and still let them remain property of Satan?
Why would he do that? Perplexing, right?
Some of us are happy. Let me just say this. Some of us are happy enough to be delivered of something.
Some of us are happy just having our life cleansed, but we don't want to have a relationship with Christ.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:06
We don't really want that. Just take away what hurts me. I don't want you. I just want what comes from you.
I don't want you. And there are people today in churches across America and the world who are content getting what they can from Christ and then leaving the church once they've once they've attained it. Are you with me? There are people in the church today. Let me tell you, I'm not against worship. I'm not against worship concert. I'm against people who are trying to chase something that's not Christ.
It's amazing because people will go to a worship conference and they will talk about how they sense the Lord moving in ways they've never sensed him moving in their life. I'm concerned about that.
Because when Christ draws near, he does so in a barn where people aren't feeling so good. Where animals are in there, they don't smell good. Have you ever smelled your dog when they go outside in the rain and then come back in? It was not so great. The incense wasn't flowing, if you know what I mean.
There was no beat, no lighting.
When God draws near, he draws near wounded, hurting, broken, quiet, small places.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 34:17
Can draw God draw near in a conference? Absolutely. God can do whatever he wants. It's just interesting. You've never felt him move that way before, but you've been walking with him for 20 years.
I'm confused. I'm confused. Who do you worship if you've never sensed them till they came to till he came to Kansas City for a concert?
Are you with me today? Who are you worshiping if you've never sensed them that way in your closet? Who are you worshiping if for 20 years you've been riding in your car back and forth to work and have never sensed him? I'm confused. I'm confused. Could it be that your house is empty of the one you declare you serve, but you're clean?
Could it be that you're looking for a feeling more than you're looking for a savior?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:42
Could it be that you want to be delivered, but you don't want to be under new ownership? Could it be that the religious trappings of the day is enough for you without Christ? That's what he's questioning today to the generation then. And that's what reverberates off the page to the generation sitting in this room today.
Let us do some soulsearching.
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