06-05-16 Luke 7:11-17

Luke 7:11-17 (NLT)

Soon afterward Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped.

“Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.

Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people today.” And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside.

It's a dramatic scene when you think about it -- I mean -- a funeral procession was interrupted and halted while it was on the trip to the cemetery.

Of course, their funeral is so much different than what we have these days. There is no black hearse, no black limousines that follow, no police car possession with the car lights all on. No, nothing like that at all.

No, this scene was so much different.

·        There was no city traffic to contend with.

·        No indifferent motorists to deal with.

·        No, this was a village scene.

·        People were on foot.

·        People were following the widowed mother

·        Who is led by a professional mourners with their cymbals, flutes and high-pitched screeching and wailing.

It is a Palestinian village scene in Nain (N-I-N), just a short distance from Nazareth (Jesus' hometown), and a day's walk from Capernaum (Car-PON-E-UM) (Jesus' new, adopted town).

The pallbearers are carrying the body of a young man in a long wicker basket covered by a shroud for burial outside the city.

Except for very important people, back in Jesus’ day, Jews buried their dead outside the city, usually on the day of death or the very next day. Embalming was not practiced.

This scene was very dramatic all by itself.

Think about it: the dead man was the only son of his mother, and she had already lost her husband.

In our world today, I am not sure if we can gain the full understanding of what was going on here.

Back then, in these particular type of cases, orphans and widows, such as this widow was, they are regarded as vulnerable, weak and without much opportunity for economic support.

Nonetheless, she was being comforted by this great crowd that was following within the procession, indicating sympathy and support at least for the time being.

That's drama enough -- a large crowd of caring people -- but now there is more.

Jesus approaches, apparently coming from Capernaum (Car-PON-E-UM) where he just healed the Roman Centurion's slave.

·        He saw the widowed, forsaken mother.

·        He had GREAT compassion for her.

·        Maybe Jesus was thinking of his own mother. It is believed that Joseph died, leaving Mary as a widow at an early age.

"Do not weep," he told her.

·        Her tears for her son no doubt were now mingled with the endless salty tears which she shed for her late husband.

·        And in the continuing of the drama, with Jesus risking the Jewish Ceremonial Impurity, he reached out, touched the basket and possibly the body itself, - and the procession halted.

Can you see this occurring in our modern setting –

·        Some traveler approaching and halting the hearse,

·        Then opening up the door of the limousine,

·        And Telling the widowed mother who was mourning - not to weep,

·        And then speaking to the coffin,

o   "Young man, I say to you, arise."

Shocking indeed,

·        And this would even be startling back within the first century Palestine period even with the traditions of hearing miracle stories of the great prophets like Elijah and Elisha raising widows' sons from the dead.

·        And then this young man not only sat up but he even began to speak, and like Elijah and Elisha before Jesus, this new “great prophet” gave the son back to his mother.

·        Talk about rising above discouragement!

·        Talk about overcoming the greatest obstacle to human fulfillment.

·        Talk about overcoming life's defeats:

·        This was it –

·        Jesus raising this young man from the dead

·        As he had Jairus' (J-I-rus’) daughter

·        And Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha.

It is important to note that Jesus

·        Didn't raise everyone physically from the dead,

·        Just as Jesus didn't heal everyone either.

But we also need to know that what He did then, at that time, He is still doing even today.

He is helping everyone to rise above their discouragement.

And that is what we will be focusing on today –

RISING ABOVE the Devil’s DISCOURAGEMENT.  

Step 1. Don't Deny Reality

So HOW, HOW CAN we rise above discouragement?

Discouragement from Satan?

There is one thing for sure, the people of today,

We do a very good job of recognizing the reality of our trouble.

In fact, in many cases, focusing upon the trouble we experience, often, it consumes our lives.

There is a Biblical scholar by the name of William Barclay who said that:

·        "We live in a world of broken hearts."

And indeed we do.

Pick up any daily newspaper,

·        They are filled with tragic story after tragic story of

o   Premature deaths,

o   Fractured relationships,

o   And broken dreams.

Indeed, we really do not need even a newspaper for an up-to-date accounting of the world's troubles and sorrows.

·        We have only to look at our

o   Own friends

o   Our neighbors

o   And our families.

o   We have only to look into our

§  Our Own lives

§  And into our own hearts.

The Devil has done a fantastic job of breaking us.

Jesus, on the other hand, He is:

·        The healer

·        And the power-giver,

·        He has Never offended people by telling them that their problems were not real.

·        He never told the sick that they were not Really Sick.

·        Nor that their illness had no pain or reality about it.

·        Jesus never told people that death wasn't real.

·        Nor did Jesus offer this widowed mother some flimsy excuse or justification to soothe over her grieving heart.

Let’s talk a little about TORNADOS

We all live in the Midwest and with that, we also live in tornado alley.

We are never for sure of what our storms will bring.

It is always a mystery of what will the clouds bring us in our afternoons or even into our nights.

·        We all know that storms can blow up in just a moment or two.

·        And although, tornados are only made up of wind, they can become very forceful and they can take away an entire home, a town or even a city.  

·        We build our homes very strong for our security but they can all be destroyed in just a heartbeat.

·        The storms of our natural world are very real.

·        Just as are the storms of our spiritual and mental world.

·        Our Troubles and Tragedies are REAL!

·        Evil and Death are very REAL.

As it is recorded in Luke 8, Jesus never said to his disciples on the stormy Sea of Galilee, that

o   This bad weather was not a storm.

o   That the storm was just in their minds."

o   Remember, Jesus was sleeping while they were terrified.

o   But He never said that.

o   Instead Jesus acted and said to the storm, "Peace, be still." And it was!

·        Are you out of a job?

·        Do you have more bills than you have money?

·        Did your home decline in value?

·        Are your financial resources diminishing?

·        Do you have a serious illness?

·        Is your marriage not right?

·        Is there a real problem with your children?

·        Are you enslaved in a devastating habit?

Then don't deny it, says Jesus.

Don’t be in denial.

Own it!

Don’t make excuses!

If it is yours, then it is yours.

The widow never said that her son wasn't dead.

o   Admit the problems.

o   Don't deny them.

That's the first step in overcoming discouragement. 

Step 2. Consider the Alternatives.

How are we to rise above our discouragement?

We need to have the COURAGE to consider ALTERNATIVES.

A while back, I counseled a person who was controlled by hate.

o   This person had a long list of things which by chose, they hung on to.

o   Although these hurts have caused this person nothing but grief and hardship, being lost within them, they could not find it within themselves to let them go.

o   They could not, would not give them to God and then forgive and forget.

o   This person did not take ownership of this hate, it was always the other person’s fault.

o   They have in a huge way, become part of this person’s way of life and they couldn’t see living without having them being part of this person.

o   This left a very frustrate and broken world for this person to live within.

There was another couple seeking financial counseling.

·        This family was so far in debt that the parents and their children alike had to actually hide when they were at home.

·        They would pull the drapes, they would not answer the door and they would most certainly not answer the phone all because of the collectors who would come to their house to collect.

·        Their debt had grown to a gross amount all to the part because of their over spending and their purchase of items which they did not need.

·        Difficulty within the family grew to the point where trail separation became a reality and they were now talking about getting a divorce.

·        Through counseling, they began to put into practice the way of life which the Bible speaks of.

·        They began to learn how to handle debt,

·        And how to live a life which is pleasing to God.

·        The collection agencies no longer hounded them.

·        Plans of repaying all who they owed were established,

·        And a life of not having to living in fear came back to the whole family.

·        However, it was shortly lived.

·        About a year later, they lost sight and their foolish type of spending came back and they were once again, in trouble with their collectors. 

We so often lose sight on what God has to offer us as an alternative and returned to our lusting within our sinning.

From the first day of the “bite”, we live in and we are in a constant struggle of the Good and the evil. The evil will continue to try to defeat you through any way which it can. Through sex, money, fame, even within yourself, Satan will take whatever triggers your excitement and he will use it against you.

His goal is for us to lose sight of our own goal of being with Jesus and he hounds us until we replace our goal with that of his.

·        Jesus told the sick,

o   "Have faith, stand up and walk."

·        It was Jesus who said to the blind man,

o   "Do you want to see?" and he did.

·        It was Jesus who said,

o   "Take up your cross and follow me."

·        It was Jesus who said,

o   "If you have faith you can move mountains."

Jesus himself refused to be defeated by circumstances.

Instead, Jesus would consider alternative ways of thinking and acting.

·        That's what made Christ such a revolutionary person.

·        Want to rise above discouragement?

·        Then let go of the past,

·        Let go of the dead-ends,

·        Let go of the impasses,

·        And get out of the corners you've painted yourself into,

·        And consider the alternatives which Christ is already showing you.

The 3^rd Step is to be Touched by Christ.

How do we rise above discouragement?

We must allow ourselves to be touched by Christ,

·        By the transcendent,

·        By the Divine Reality which is greater than ourselves.

One of the surest ways to discouragement and death is to assume that all reality begins and ends with you.

Many of us hold onto our Pride so much that we gain an understanding, a strong hold in our thinking that nothing is good unless we think of it.

Or, if it didn’t happen to us, then it can’t be that bad or others just need to get over it and move on

But if it happens to us, then it is so bad and terrible.

Our whole understanding of our reality is therefore defined by our narrow perceptions.

Invariably, when we become discouraged, we allow our own world and self-understanding to collapse in around us.

Many discouraged and despairing people are influenced in their own vanity.

We get caught in the grip of doubt

·        And refuse to doubt our own doubts;

·        We refuse to question our own stale definitions of self and reality.

In contrast to this,

Jesus calls us to open up to the Divine

·        In prayer

·        And in humility.

Many, if not all of us, fight this surrender.

We refuse, we are stubborn on this submission.

Last week, we talked about the job of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit brings the TRUTH.

He will convict us of what is not TRUTH and He will lead us to TRUTH.

Have you ever taken two magnets and held them up to one another?

·        If you hold them in a certain way, one with the North Pole and the other with the South Pole, they will attract each other like there is an invisible force. And depending upon the size of the magnets, you may or may not be physically strong enough to keep them from coming together.

·        Now if you turn one magnet around, making the North or South Pole towards the same on the second one, and attempt to put them together, they will greatly repel each other apart. Never coming together. And depending upon the size of the magnets and it doesn’t take much of a size at all but they will fight you and you will not be able to put them together. In fact, they may propel each other away with great force.

This is a good example for us to understand God and sin.

When we turn our lives over to God the Son, to Jesus and we accept Him as our Lord and Savior, we can describe our lives as being of magnets.

God is one of the magnets and we are the other.

And in this analogy, we can only guess how strong of a magnet God would be. Very powerful comes to my mind.

And when we are called to be of God’s but we live a life within the devil’s playground, don’t you see, there is this rebellion, this resistance, this pulling and pushing away going on.

Often, this type of conflict becomes difficult, sometimes overwhelming, sometimes it traps us, pushes us into a corner and we begin to think that there is only one way out.

I was asked by someone who

o   Didn’t own up to the reality of his life which he had created.

o   Who was in this situation, and he could not consider any other alternative but

o   And, in this distress, he lost sight of God’s Love and he even thought that God was against him.

That was when he was asking me if suicide was a sin.

We are forever learning that God is for us, not against us.

It is we who are against ourselves in

o   Our nearsightedness,

o   Our rigidity,

o   Our fear,

o   Our arrogance

o   And our stubbornness.

Many of us are slow learners.

We refuse to allow God to touch us

o   With the new idea,

o   The new self-understanding,

o   The new job,

o   The new opportunity,

o   The new vital power he has to give.

It was Isaiah the prophet who put it so well for the Lord:
(Isaiah 55:6, 8-9)

Seek the Lord while you can find him.

Call on Him now while He is near.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.

“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

It was the Divine Power which spoke to the dead young man that day long ago in the village of Nain.

It was a dramatic sight, a rarity with Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and perhaps a few other great prophets.

We shall have to wait until the end of time to see the grand resurrection of the dead.

But in our time and in all time, the power of the living Christ raises people up from

o   Discouragement,

o   Depression,

o   Despair

o   And from death itself.

The Bible and books of the world and the churches are full of stories of how God helped and helps people rise above discouragement.

And as Jesus said to that young man in Nain long ago, so would Jesus say to each of us,

Young man or old,

Young woman or old,

For Jesus say to you, ARISE.

And you will.