[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: It's seven o' clock, so it's time for us to go ahead and get started tonight. If you are a guest here with us, we want to say welcome. Every Wednesday night in the summer, we have something called a summer series.
And our youth are downstairs also having their own summer series. And the way it works upstairs is the same. Downstairs we have different guest speakers that come here every Wednesday night to speak. And tonight we have actually two people from Freed Hardman. We have Doug Burleson up here with us tonight and Matt Sokolowski downstairs. And so we're excited to have both of these guys here with us tonight. And just to give you a little bit of background on Doug, Doug is a Bible professor at Freed. He also directs the lectureship. And if you've ever gone to the lectureship, it's always a great event. And I know a lot of folks here from Madison attend that every year. And he does a great work there with that. He is married and has four kids. And actually, I didn't know this, but his wife' from the Decatur area, has she always been from this area?
[00:01:34] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: That's a whole other story. So we won't get into that tonight, but we're glad that he's here and some of his family's here with him as well. And he also preaches a little bit part time at Estes Church of Christ right down the road, too. So we're excited to have Doug with us. And before Doug, I'm going to say a prayer and then we're going to sing one song and we'll stand for that song and then we'll be seated and we'll turn it over to Doug. After that, let's go to God in prayer.
God, we thank you for the blessing it is to be here tonight. We thank you for the opportunity that we get to fellowship together, to spend time together. And we get so much energy from your word, from singing you praises, and from each other. And that's evident by the conversations that are in this room. And we're excited to continue that fellowship tonight. And, Lord, we're excited most of all about getting to come before your throne and praise your name. And we're also excited about the opportunity to get to know you more through your word. And we pray for Doug tonight, and we thank you for the word that he's going to share with us. We also appreciate so much the work that he and his family do in Henderson, and we just pray a blessing for him tonight. Lord, we thank you for Jared leading us in this song. And Lord, help us to pour out our hearts to you. We ask all these things in your son's name. Amen.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: It's always a blessing to be at Madison. Got so many friends here, and every time I walk in this place, I feel like I'm being welcomed home. I wish Christy and the kids could be with me tonight, but I'm blessed to have my father in law, Gene Johnson, with me here. Christy and I are celebrating 25 years of marriage this year. And every day I wake up thinking, I'm so glad she said yes. I still don't know why, but we. This year, we're celebrating, and I thought it would be really appropriate to put a picture from our wedding day on Facebook.
And several people commented and said, wow, you know, she looks just like she did when you guys were in college. It's just amazing. And Doug, what happened to you? And I thought, well, this will probably be the last time I put an anniversary picture up there. But it reminded me of what happens sometimes when it's late at night. I don't know if you've had this experience before, but it's late at night and you're probably eating something you shouldn't be eating. For me, it's usually a bowl of ice cream. I'm sitting there on the couch. And then you get that weight loss commercial that comes on, and there's that before and after picture. You know what I'm talking about? There's that frowning person who, before this particular product, they applied this product. They're sad. But then after this, they've had this incredible transformation.
Well, tonight I want to look at a story that's very similar to that in the Gospel of Mark, chapter five, and look at an example of something that I think we might overlook, because it seems like something that's so Foreign to our world, A man full of evil spirits who's living among tombs and really dealing with some difficult things. We think man, that was a different time, that was a different place. But I'm encouraged tonight that it's the same God that we serve today. You know, in Hebrews 13, 8 we read that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And even though our world is always changing and there are certainly things about the times that Jesus lived in that are very different than our day.
I want to encourage you tonight by looking at the power of God to change lives. And so we're going to walk through this text together and then we're going to ask some questions about what maybe our ministry should look like and perhaps even more powerfully what God can do and maybe has done in our life. And so if you've got a Bible, let's go to Mark chapter five. We're going to camp out there for a little while tonight. Mark is a fast paced gospel account moving very quickly through the ministry of Jesus.
There's no genealogy, there's no birth story, you just jump in. And the first 13 verses, Mark covers what it takes Matthew and Luke about four chapters to cover. And there you are in the middle of Jesus ministry. He's baptized, he's tempted, and by the end of Mark chapter one, he's healing lepers, he's casting out evil spirits. At the end of Mark chapter four, he calms the sea of Galilee, which I've never seen anything like that in my own life. God in the flesh spoke a storm to a storm and the storm stopped raging. And then as mark chapter five begins in the first 20 verses again, it's easy for us to read this and think that's so foreign to our world. It doesn't help me in any way. But I am convinced that this story not only serves as a reminder of how powerful our God is, it can remind us of how God can bring about change our life. And so let's go to Mark chapter five and notice how this chapter begins. We won't pull out the map, but it begins by noting that they were going to the other side of the sea. This is the Sea of Galilee. And you might remember that most of Jesus's public ministry happens on the west side of the sea. On the map to the left, that's where Capernaum is and a lot of other cities that Jesus spends a lot of time ministering in. But he and the disciples are in the boat.
That's where Jesus does a lot of teaching. Including two miraculous calm storms being calmed in the midst of his ministry. And there they're crossing to the other side of the sea into the region of the Gerasenes, or maybe your translation there says the region of the Gadarenes. We don't know a lot about these people, but we know that from a Jewish perspective, this is a long way from Jerusalem. This is a place where there's a lot of danger and a lot of impurity, a lot of risk involved. And Jesus goes there. Why? Well, frequently in Jesus's public ministry, he tries to withdraw from the crowd, often to pray. And Mark in particular, he likes to withdraw to mountains to pray. He takes the disciples with him. And sometimes in a very intentional way in the boat, which is often the classroom in Mark has conversations about the nature of God and what Jesus was sent to do. And so we're told that when they got out of the boat, immediately. That's one of Mark's favorite words, immediately, a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met him.
Now, that seems odd, doesn't it? From a Jewish framework, this is about as impure as it gets. We're on the other side of the sea. We're dealing with tombs, which is an unclean place to live. Who lives in graveyards, right? And there's a man who's coming, running at Jesus with an unclean spirit. That's all we know. Then verse three reminds us that he had been living among the tombs, which doesn't sound normal.
And then we learned that he has this strength that had really prohibited anybody from being able to control his behavior or actions. We're told that no one was able to tie him up, even with a chain. And often when they had tried to do that, verse four, he took those chains, those shackles, and he tore them apart. The Greek here indicates that he ground these chains up into powder, which indicates we're not talking about your normal guy. It doesn't matter how much you work out, how much exercise might be involved here. There's something demonic going on in this man. And the more we read, the more we find out that this is sort of a nightmare scenario. Not only is this man full of evil spirits, no 1 verse 4 was able or strong enough to subdue him. And so imagine the kind of neighbor this man proved to be. Chrissy and I, after we got married, lived in an apartment in Nashville. And this sounds like some of our neighbors back then. It's been a while when in verse five, we're told that constantly, night and day, he would run among the tombs and scream and. And just this shows you how self destructive this man is. He would even cut himself with rocks.
This is tragic. It's sad. It shows how far sometimes we can fall away from God's intent for us. We allow evil to rule our lives. And so this is the man after this inspired, scary introduction, who comes running to Jesus in verse 6.
He sees Jesus, he runs towards him, he falls down before him. James reminds us that even the demons believe and tremble. And that seems to be what happens here in verse 7 when crying out with a loud voice.
You wonder what this voice sounded like. It probably sounded like evil, Evil in the flesh.
What do you have? What do I have to do with you? Jesus, son of the Most High, I implore you by God, do not torment me. For Jesus had been saying, come out of the man, you unclean spirit. And so Jesus, in verse nine, I suppose he already knows this man's name. He probably knows exactly what this man needs. But for our learning, he asked him, what's Your name? Verse 9. And he says, my name is Legion, for we are many. Maybe you have a footnote there. You've heard this lesson before, and we're told that this term legion is a Roman military term usually referring to somewhere between 2 to 6,000 soldiers. I don't think that means that there are literally 2 to 6,000 evil spirits within this man. But all this says here is there's a lot of evil, there's a lot of hurt, there's a lot of things going on in this man's life that are certainly out of control, out of his control. And this is heartbreaking.
And so after hearing this, he began pleading with Jesus earnestly not to send them out of the region.
I've often wondered, you know, what does that mean? And I can't claim to have all the answers on that, but I have been convinced that if the demons don't want to go back to the hell they came from, you know, why would we want to go there?
This says something about their acknowledging that Jesus has a level of authority that they haven't encountered before. Here's a guy who no one is able to subdue. Nobody was able to chain him up. And he immediately acknowledges Jesus's power.
Mises, the guy who's made a living out of terrorizing other people. I think even though there's a lot of things about demon possession that are hard to understand, demon possession in antiquity was one of Satan's greatest tricks. It made people think that he was in charge. It made people believe that there was nothing they could do to overcome the power of evil. And this was sort of the poster child for demonic possession. And yet as soon as he encounters Jesus, what does he acknowledge? Jesus's authority, Jesus power. And so we see in verse 11, just to add one more level of impurity to this story on the other side of the sea, blood, tombs, all kinds of crude and unusual behavior. We now find out for those of us keeping score of what's kosher, that there's a large herd of swine feeding nearby on the mountains. And the demons pleaded with Jesus saying send us into the pigs so that we may enter them. And Jesus gave them permission. Which doesn't that say something?
That God by his permissive will allowed these evil spirits to leave. And it just shows not only how Jesus power is being put on display here, but how short sighted the power or the wisdom of the demons is. Because here they've gone from destroying this man to ultimately causing this large herd of pigs to really self destruct.
Because we're told in verse 13 that they came out of the unclean man and they entered the pigs, these evil spirits, and they rushed down the steep bank into the Sea of galilee and about 2,000 of them drowned there.
Several years ago when I was preaching in Baton Rouge, one of our elders gave me the Bible on cd because I was driving between Baton Rouge and New Orleans a lot for school. And he got me a dramatized audio Bible. I'll never forget the day I was listening to Mark five because normally it's just the sounds of pots and pitchers clanging in the kitchen or people milling around in the marketplace. But if you've ever got stereo surround sound and wonder what it sounds like for 2000 pigs full of evil spirits to rush down a steep bank and drown themselves in the sea, I 10 I almost went all the way across into the woods. It was terrifying.
And I thought I heard a preacher say one time, I think this is true. This is probably the first time we read about deviled ham right in all the Bible. But it was destructive. It was terrible. I'm sorry, I'm a dad.
But then in verse 14 you see the herdsmen react in a natural way. They are terrified.
They're also probably lamenting the fact that the job they were given custody of they failed miserably in. But who could have expected on the day that you sort of filled out your pig herder application, you know, what are you going to do when some evil spirits enter into your pigs and they decide to drown themselves?
Nothing had prepared these guys for that either. And so we're told in verse 14, they do exactly what we probably would have done. They go and they tell their friends and family members, they share this in the countryside and all around. And people, even back in antiquity, rubbernecking was a thing, right? They came out to see these dead pigs floating in the water.
And what was even scarier than that is they came out to see this man who formerly wasn't clothed, who hurt himself, who lived among the tombs and was a public nuisance. People had tried to tie him up because they were so intimidated by this demonic power sitting there in his right mind.
That's what scared them the most when they came out to see what had happened. Verse 15, they observed the demon possessed man sitting down, clothed. That's its own sermon. And in his right mind, the very man who had the legion. And they were terrified.
And as a result of that, they saw what had happened to the demon possessed man and all the pigs. And the saddest verse in this whole story is verse 17.
When they asked Jesus to leave, they ask him to leave their region. They actually, it seems, are more afraid of the man who was able to make the demon possessed man well than they were of the demon possessed man himself.
And so Jesus, we're told, complies as he's getting into the boat. That's all that's said in verse 18, no argument, no discussion, as Jesus is already getting back into the boat. I don't know how he had been there, clearly not very long.
The man who had been demon possessed was pleading with him.
That's a continuous pleading, more than once begging him if he might could go with him. This reminds me of what my 8 year old still does when it's time to go on a trip and I'm going to be gone for a little while or I'm going to be going to work, you know. Dad, can I come with you? Can I go with you? That's the picture you get here of this man who's been completely changed by Jesus. And, and Jesus here in verse 19 I think makes one of the greatest statements about evangelism, even though I know that's not the context in all the New Testament when he doesn't allow this man to go with him, but he says no, go home to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you. And then verse 20 tells us that this man does that, that he goes to These cities, Decapolis, 10 cities in this region. Gentile cities, cities that we don't have any reason to believe they've ever heard anything about Jesus. We don't have any reason to necessarily believe that the ground had been prepared for any of these people to know anything about the gospel. And yet in this setting, what happens, they believe because they see this before and after picture and they're convinced that the power that was able to help this man who previously had been out of control and self destructive, that they wanted to know more about that. And as a result, this man who had been out of control living life in a self destructive way calls people to marvel because he not only preached the truth about Jesus, he showed people what it looks like when Jesus brings about incredible change in a person's life.
Now I just want to let that sit there for a moment.
I don't want to abuse the context of Mark 5. I think the spirit of God tells the story in a gospel of action, in part to show us that wherever Jesus goes, whatever he encounters, however bad or impure or scary the situation is, Jesus is able to handle it. This is about his power, this is about his authority. Contextually, I think that's the big idea of Mark 5, 1:20. But I just, I can't, I can't leave it here because I want to just ask a couple of questions. If we could sort of move this into a 20, 25 context and just ask for a moment, let's just play together on this. What excuses might Jesus have made in this moment that that could sound familiar to us? I mean, after all, he's on a boat with his disciples, he's crossing the sea, he's getting away from a really crazy stretch of his public ministry over in Capernaum. What excuses could Jesus have made in this moment?
Well, I've got a few excuses I make.
Let me just start with this one. Was there anything about Legion, the man formerly known as Legion, that gave the impression that he would be open to a Bible study, that he would be open to the message of Christ?
Wouldn't it have been easy for Jesus to have said, man, this guy's too far gone? I mean, clearly we don't know much about his backstory, but there's a reason Satan has moved in and apparently there's a reason a lot of demons have been involved in this guy's life. He's got a messy past. He would not make a very good prospect.
We lived in Baton Rouge. There was a famous televangelist who used to have a ministry there until his empire sort of fell apart in the 80s.
And I remember hearing about how people, when they would go to those services and they would still film and broadcast them, they would be very careful about who they put on the front few rows of the crowd, because as the camera sort of pans the crowd, you want to put people in the front that look like they're paying attention and kind of look like they're happy to be there. Could you imagine Legion walking in to that kind of a place? You would never want him anywhere near the front of the auditorium. This guy doesn't represent what we believe. He doesn't seem to carry the Christian card like we would want him to. And there's nothing about him that would give us the impression that this would do any good, to even waste our time wanting to talk with him about the Gospel, much less help him out in any way.
Then there's this. I mean, Jesus could have legitimately said, do you know how busy I am?
Do you know how many people there are who are wanting time with me?
How many ministries I'm already involved in? How many, if you'll allow the lingo of 20, 25 to be applied here, how many Bible studies I'm already participating in? I'm just. Actually, I came across the sea to get away from this. I'm on vacation.
I don't think our Lord would have said that, but he could have.
I'm actually on break.
He could have said, look, according to the law of Moses, and I think this is hinted at in verse 19, when Jesus says, go home to your people, I think he's talking about his family. I don't know what kind of family background this man had, but based on what we know about Jesus context, he's probably married.
He definitely has parents. What if he has children? I don't know how many of those folks are still alive. But could you imagine having a brother or having a father or a son like Legion? For some of us, maybe it's not all that hard.
There's somebody in our family that we've done everything we can to help them save, tying them up in a cemetery. And it just doesn't really seem that any amount of love or effort or prayer really does what it takes to help them in the way we would like to help them. And Jesus could have said, look, this isn't my problem. That's his family's problem.
That's their legal responsibility. Have you heard of Good Samaritan laws? I'm not going to get involved in this. I'm not going to get sued. I'M not going to get my hands dirty in ministry. Jesus certainly could have said that.
Or Jesus could have said, look, this is a PR nightmare.
What if it gets out that I'm hanging out with this guy on the other side of the sea who's about as ceremonially impure as anybody possibly could be? He's immodest, he's. He's cutting himself with rocks, he's making all kinds of noises, he's living among dead people. There's nothing about this guy that I want to stand up next to as a good God fearing Jewish male.
Or maybe he could have put some conditions on this guy.
And look, I have comfort zones. I understand this. But what if Jesus had said, I'm not talking to you until you clean your life up.
I'm not going to waste my time on you until you're able to sort of get it together.
And the problem when we say things like that is how do we expect someone to get it together when they don't know God?
Why are we surprised when people are acting like sinners when they're living in a world that's saturated by sin and they haven't yet heard about the goodness and grace of Jesus Christ? Jesus could have made every one of these excuses. And I have made every one of these excuses.
I'm not going to waste my time on that. Well, excuse me. I'm so thankful nobody looked at me and thought that.
I'm so thankful people have shown grace towards me and been patient with me. I'm so thankful for a God who sent his son, Luke 19:10, to seek and to save that which was lost. I'm thankful that Jesus didn't make those kinds of stipulations or have those kinds of presuppositions. Aren't you, when you read Romans 5, starting in verse 6, that while we were sinners, while we were enemies of the cross, what did God do? He sent his son to die in our place.
And the before and after picture, before this man met Jesus, when he's living among the tombs and living in a chaotic situation, there was nothing good going on in his life.
He had no meaningful relationships. Everybody he knew had been alienated by his behavior.
He was out of control. He had no purpose in his life.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: He.
[00:24:06] Speaker C: He's missing out on everything. And as hard as it is, maybe for some of us, when you read those parables in Luke 15, the lost sheep, verses 1 through 7, the lost coin 8 through 10, the lost son 11 through 32, the reason I think it's Difficult sometimes for us to relate to some of those images there is because most of us have been blessed to spend a lot of time with the 99 sheep or the 9 coins in the woman's hand, or with the older brother. And maybe it's hard to remember what it was like to be away from God, to be alienated from him. But here is a picture of what it looks like to have no meaning or purpose in life. And I'm convinced that whether we're in Henderson, Tennessee, or Huntsville, Alabama, or anywhere in between or anywhere around the world, we've got a lot of people we love and care about who might not acknowledge they're living in this reality, but this is exactly where they are.
And they're trying to find purpose in finances and in maybe getting famous and maybe finding some pleasure along the road of life. And all these things seem, by Satan's deception, to provide some incredible purpose. And when they get to sort of the end of the rainbow, what do they discover? I am empty.
It's like Solomon in Ecclesiastes. I've done it all. I've built everything. I've experienced all there is, and under the sun, what have I found?
Nothing. It's all worthless. It's all vanity. It's all striving after the wind. That's exactly where he was.
But aren't you thankful that when Christians assemble, it's not just so that we can talk about the way things were before?
Maybe it's good every now and then before we go into talking about what we need to do to be saved, to remember why we're lost and how much we need God, how much in a culture that sometimes sort of makes Christianity something that you wear and something that you can just identify with, because culturally it's still acceptable. Maybe it's good on occasion to be reminded that my goodness isn't going to accomplish anything. It's God's goodness, and participating in what he's offering is what brings us hope. And so, as you move from that before picture of desperation and sadness and deception and brokenness, there's nothing good in this guy's life. What does Jesus bring?
Jesus brings a cleansing power that no other agent on earth could possibly offer.
Talk about life change.
Some of us have walked this road.
Most of us in Christ ought to know what this feels like, to go from a place of purposelessness and meaninglessness and no future. You know, we can't answer questions like why am I here and what am I involved with? And where's this going to end up? Jesus brings about a sense of security and is able in the midst of an awful situation where there are pigs and graves and alienation from God and his own family isn't even involved in his life, what do we find here? Well, we find something remarkable, actually. Let me rephrase that. We find someone remarkable. And because this man encounters Christ, everything changes. And let me just offer what I think is helpful here. You know, it's difficult to share the truth sometimes in a culture where with pluralism, there's just so many things that are being said and they're being claimed and it's confusing and difficult, and we don't really want to engage in just a bunch of debate. So. So in the midst of all that, what do we see at work in the life of this man that's helpful?
Complete transformation.
And rather than thinking, you know, I've got to memorize the whole Bible and I've got to have everything, every possible question anybody could ask me, I've got to have an answer ready. You know, I've got to be prepared to deal with whatever objections they might bring up. Instead, you know, maybe we could start with Mark 5:19 and tell our story, tell others what Christ has done for us and how he's had compassion on us. And instead of giving the impression, which social media often does, right, that my life is perfect and my family is perfect, I don't read about a single perfect family in all the Bible, including Jesus own family. John 7:5 says that they didn't believe, his brothers didn't believe until after the resurrection. And so instead of giving this impression that everything's always great, what we do well, we say, look, the reason I have hope, the reason I have joy, the reason I have confidence, is because of what God has offered me.
So I wanted to make this really practical tonight and maybe get a little audience participation.
I was thinking about how this story might engage us as those who are trying to live for Christ and share our faith in 2025. So let me just ask you this, just a quick survey. How did you first hear about Christ?
Let me offer some options.
There's some great media campaigns and there's some great television shows and programs and even whole networks that are invited or involved rather, in sharing the truth. And so let me just ask you if you're comfortable raising your hand. We'll just see how this goes, right? Were any of you sitting at home and maybe a television show came on, or maybe you were sitting in front of a computer or you had your phone out and there was Some kind of program that came on and you saw truth proclaimed there. And because you saw that program, you said, I want to be a Christian, and you immediately went and found somebody to study with. There are some great programs that I'm a fan of. But was anybody brought to Christ because of a television program or maybe a web broadcast?
Okay, well, there's some great radio programs, too. Am, fm, xm, you know, maybe Internet radio. Maybe, you know, you were listening to a great International Gospel Hour or some other program, and you heard the gospel preached. And listen, I believe in those things. I think it's a great thing to publicly teach the truth. But were any of you driving down the road or maybe listening to a radio somewhere and you heard the gospel preached and you said, I want to be a Christian because of a radio program?
Look, there's some great tracts, some great materials that have been written. A lot of our lobbies are filled with these colorful tracts that include really great teaching. I'm a fan of giving those out. I. I read them. I try to read what we put in the lobby at estus, and I think they can include some great teachings. So maybe somebody knocked on your door, or maybe they hung a bag on your door, or maybe they left one under your windshield wiper. Don't you love that? Or. Or maybe they. They left one somewhere at a restaurant. You picked up a tract, and he started reading about the gospel. And after reading that material, you said, man, I want to know more about Jesus. I'm a fan of those tracts. But is that anybody's story?
Okay, well, maybe there's a certain preacher or teacher that you really like. I mean, you bring in some great teachers and preachers. You've got several of them right here at Madison. And so maybe you heard that this preacher was going to be in the area and he was going to be holding a revival or he was going to be teaching down the road. And. And you just decided, hey, wherever this guy is, wherever this lady's Bible class teacher is, I'm going to go and I'm going to. I'm going to sit at their feet. And because of their influence, that's how you were brought to Christ. I know this is starting to feel ridiculous.
Maybe. Here's one more.
Maybe you were driving down the road and you saw a beautiful church building. And look, I'm a fan of church buildings. I'm a fan of having a place where we can assemble comfortably, where everybody has room, where everybody has a seat. We're expanding our building right now at Estes We've been overdoing a fellowship hall for a long time. I've been eating. I have a plate on my knees every Sunday. We've had a fellowship meal. I'm excited to have a table and a chair. Right, but maybe you were riding down the road and somebody had just built a beautiful church building and you were like, man, I don't know much about those people, but I've never seen a building that looks like that. I've got to know more about what they do and what they believe. And so as soon as you saw that church building, you wheeled into the parking lot on two wheels and you ran inside to talk to somebody about the gospel. Is that anybody's story?
So what is somebody who was changed by Jesus?
Maybe it was a parent, a spouse, co worker, a classmate. Maybe it's somebody you lived with. Maybe it's somebody you just knew from work.
They wanted you to know about the Savior who had made an incredible difference in your life.
And so they shared the gospel.
You know what I find?
Look, I love what the church does online and through the radio and through television and through tracks. And there's all kinds of wonderful ways we can share the truth of the gospel.
But nothing will compete with the Mark 5:19 model which says, hey, can I just tell you about the Jesus that has brought purpose and meaning to my life?
What happens in that moment is God brings about change when we allow the stories of other people who've been transformed by encountering Christ to bring real purpose and meaning into our life. And as a benefit of this, we haven't even touched on this as another benefit of this story. In Mark 5, we also learn not only to value truth, but to value people.
And I think there are a lot of people who maybe intentionally or unintentionally, we sometimes look past, we walk by them and we think, you know, I just don't know if they would ever be open to a conversation about Jesus. I don't know if they would ever really open to hearing my story or having a conversation. And I'm just thinking, I thank God that people didn't pass me by, but instead took the time to slow down long enough to share with me the gospel of Jesus Christ.
God can bring about incredible change.
I'm not even suggesting that we have to have those conversations for God to always bring about that change. But in Mark 5, we see a radical story of transformation, a before and after picture that is unforgettable.
But I don't think those stories are limited to the pages of Scripture.
At Estes, we are blessed to have brothers and sisters who are overcoming horrible experiences that they've had in life, incredible loss and traumatic trials, and sometimes mistakes that we've made. And yet, isn't it wonderful to know that for the rest of Legion's life, although we don't really know how the rest of his story goes, that he's able to represent Christ in the same way that anybody from Capernaum or Jerusalem possibly could, because he now knew what Christ was all about.
And isn't it wonderful that our before picture doesn't have to define us once we've walked with Christ in obedience?
You know, baptism is easy to talk about. It's not really a part of the story of Mark 5. But I think the beautiful thing about a conversation about baptism is we can connect that directly to Jesus.
Not only the Savior who was baptized to fulfill all righteousness in Matthew 3, 14, 17, but the Savior who, according to Romans 6, 3, 4, we participate in his death, burial and resurrection. We experience what we're talking about tonight, encountering Christ and living for him.
Have you ever noticed though, what happens next in Mark chapter 5?
As soon as the story comes to an end, Jesus has another encounter on the other side of the sea with a person who very easily could have been defined by his past experiences by the name of Jairus, by a woman who could have easily been defined by her past illness.
And every person Jesus meets. What do we experience?
Transformation.
A life changing encounter that allows these individuals from that day forward to live with purpose.
A purpose that looks beyond the things that they've experienced in their past, but can embrace the present and celebrate the fact that God has brought about a change here that is remarkable and that is transformative in a way that will touch eternity.
When I was in school, we used to have a group of men who would come to our campus and they would tell their story. It was called the Don't Follow Me program.
These were men who had been incarcerated for various reasons and they would come and they would, in a very kid friendly way, tell their stories as a way of helping us to make decisions that would hopefully guide us in the future to avoid being in the place they were.
I've often thought about that and those men and wondered how their stories ended and thought, you know, as Christians, we sort of get to do the opposite because we get to tell the story of liberation and say, follow me. Not because I've always stepped in a way that honors God, but because I've been changed by a Christ who invites me to walk in his steps, not as someone who has to walk perfectly.
You know, if I'm striving for moral perfectionism, not only will I neglect the grace of God, I'll never really come to understand what a debtor I am who doesn't deserve anything but God's condemnation.
But instead of being defined by those things, by people I've disappointed, by failures I've made in the past, I look forward and say, God, how can you use me now?
And I've often wondered.
Maybe like Jonah of old, who had quite the story to tell.
Maybe like Saul of Tarsus, who, throughout his ministry, we know from his thirteen epistles in the New Testament, has a story to tell of transformation. How even three times in the book of Acts, in Acts 9, Acts 22, Acts 26, every time Paul tells his story, he tells the story of how Christ brought about change in his life. I wonder what listening to a sermon by the guy formerly known as Legion was like.
You guys wouldn't believe where I've been.
What would he mention?
I've disappointed a lot of people.
I've made some decisions that have hurt a lot of people.
I've done some things that nearly destroyed me.
I've not only alienated people, but I've alienated people that didn't even know me because of my past behavior. And yet all of those things, what could he say? That's the way things used to be.
But because of what Jesus Christ has brought about in my life, if Legion were to take this ministry beyond the cities of Decapolis and continue preaching that word, he's a walking billboard for Jesus that for the rest of his life he gets to tell that story of the difference Jesus can make in our lives. And tonight, this is the whole point of this lesson. We have a story to tell also.
And it doesn't have to be dramatic, it doesn't have to be as wild as Legion's story was. But haven't we been changed by our Lord in a very similar way? And that now relationships have purpose. My life, my mission, has value.
I know what I'm worth to God. You know, instead of looking down my nose at others, I'm going to think about how God values them. And he values me. Not only did he make us in his image, he had one only begotten son. And he sent him into this world to be a missionary, to demonstrate as a light to the world exactly what God desires for us. That's the pattern we get to see in our Lord.
And that's the message we get to proclaim, not only can God change you, he's changed me.
And because of the change I've seen him bring about in my life, I now have the blessing of spending every day, every breath, telling others about what a great God I serve and how. This isn't something that's limited to the pages of Scripture. It's not something that's limited to the boundaries of our church building. It's not something that's locked up in the books of history. If you want to hear about the transforming power of the of the blood of Jesus and the empowerment of the Spirit at work in our life, and what it means to be obedient to the Father, look at the church, where you'll see a bunch of men and women who've assembled together because they've been made whole by a Savior who could give them something that no one else could offer.
And if the church ever fails to proclaim that message as central to our identity, if we ever try to replace that with a program or with a gimmick or some other get help quick scheme, we've really failed to take advantage of the power of the Gospel, which says, hey, if you want to have a different life and you want to live with purpose and you want to have real healing and a real mission that can bring about real results, the answer is Jesus Christ, pursue a relationship with our Lord. That's what brings the difference. And it doesn't mean life's going to be easy. It doesn't mean that that walk is always going to be clear. We still have to walk by faith. But imagine how our communities could be transformed if we were to spend every day telling people about the difference that Christ made in our life. So as we preach and quote our favorite evangelism text, the Great commission, in Matthew 28, 18, 20, that great powerful ending in Mark's gospel, in Mark 16, 15 and 16, or all those other passages where we see the heart of God to share, you know, 1 Timothy 2:4. God desires all people everywhere to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. But in the midst of all of those, may we not forget Mark 5:19.
And maybe Thursday will be different, because at work or at home or wherever we find ourselves, we're going to hear the voice of our Savior speaking to a man who just a little while ago, nobody wanted to be around saying, go home to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how he has had compassion on you. Brothers and sisters, we have a story to tell.
It's the story of how God has brought about change in our life and may we have the courage to show people as much as it sometimes hurts, as embarrassing as it can sometimes be, the true before and after picture of what it means to encounter the power of God in Christ.
Let's pray together.
God, you are a great God and we we praise you not only for what you did so long ago in the ministry of our Lord, but what you're doing right now in our lives. And we trust you and we hope that you will empower us and convict us to share this story so that others might come to know how great you are. Thank you for this great congregation and these brothers and sisters that we love so dearly. May you help each one of us to share this gospel with a world that desperately needs more light. We love you and praise you. Thank you for bringing about change in our lives. We pray in Jesus name Amen.
