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Well, good morning.
Glad that all of you are here with us.
If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open up to Luke chapter 8 as we continue on.
And so this morning, I want to share with you guys, in 1977, there was a guy named Jerry
Reed who came out with a song called Eastbound and Down.
There was a line in it that I think will embrace my preaching style this morning, which is, I've
got a long way to go and a short time to get there, all right?
So this morning, that's what we're going to do in Luke chapter 8 as we look at all of it.
But next week, starting next week, I'm excited because we're going to spend about three weeks
just kind of moving through Luke 9.
So we've really been pedal to the metal, like pressing down and moving forward.
We'll do that this week.
But next week, we will pause for a moment as we look at Luke 9 over the course of the next
three weeks.
So let's jump right in.
Luke 8, starting in verse 4.
And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in
a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed.
And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot.
And the birds of the air devoured it.
And some fell on the rock.
And as it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture.
And some fell among the thorns.
And the thorns grew up with it and choked it.
And some fell into good soil and grew a yielded hundredfold.
As he said these things, he called out,
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
So Jesus, as he's journeying along in Luke chapter 8, stops and teaches a parable.
And this parable is going to kind of be the foundation of our message, both in what he
taught and then, I'm going to be honest with you, kind of this weird phrase that he gives
at the end of this parable.
And if you've been with us, if you've studied scripture before, you know that Jesus oftentimes
taught in parables.
And what a parable would be is a story that Jesus would tell that would teach truths about
the kingdom of God.
It would teach truths about the gospel.
It would teach truths about Christ.
Sometimes it would be a parable that is hard to understand, that would have set in a future
time or set in a different place.
But oftentimes, as we see with this parable, it was an everyday encounter.
And so people have written about this one, that more than likely, as Jesus was traveling along
in the season of time in which he was traveling, that they would have passed by a field.
And more than likely, there would have been a farmer out in the field casting seed out as
he prepared for the upcoming harvest season.
And so Jesus tells this parable.
Now, what's interesting about this that is different from some, but similar to some, is Jesus tells
the parable, and then they continue on their way.
And later on in Jesus' interaction with his disciples, Jesus explains this parable to them.
So if you're just part of the crowd, you just hear these words of Jesus because you don't
get the application until much later on, and then that was only for a few of them.
So later on in Luke 8, Jesus explains what's going on specifically in this parable as he
described an event that would have been common, that everyone would have known about.
It'd kind of be like me standing up here to all of you and describing what a hot August day
in Columbia, South Carolina feels like, right?
Like, you know that.
What's the point?
And so as Jesus explains this parable, there's some things that I want us to begin to notice
about it.
The first thing I want us to notice is, I want you to notice this, there's only one sower
in the parable.
Jesus doesn't talk about multiple sowers.
Well, I want us to see that when Jesus says that a sower went out into the field to sow
seed, and that Jesus is the sower in the parable.
He is the one doing the work, not multiple.
I think something else that's very important is Jesus as the sower is he is casting one type
of seed.
So it's not a farmer is going out and in this section there's wheat, and then he moves to
this section and there's peas, in this section there's corn.
Jesus describes a farmer that would go out and cast out one seed, and later on in the
explanations, and this is why this is important, Jesus says the seed is the word of God.
And so everything that he's going to speak of, of the truth, of the life's transformation
that's going to come from, it's going to come from one seed and one seed only, the truth
of God's word.
It's not going to come from religion, it's not going to come from works, it's going to
come from the very word of God.
I think it's important for us to see that this is happening in one location.
This isn't happening in different fields, in different countries, in different lands.
Jesus doesn't describe a field in the Middle East and then jump to a field in North Africa
and then jump to a field in East Asia and jump to a field in Central Europe.
Everywhere that Jesus talks is in this one, which is important also because it's implied
that the sower owns the field.
And so we begin to see the universality of the truth of what Jesus is proclaiming, of the
hope of the gospel as the seed won't fall.
But even though all of these factors are consistent, even though it is one sower, even though it is
one type of seed, even though it is in the field, we will see from this that there are four different
outcomes that Jesus describes.
And later on, he gives the spiritual implications to those who follow him so that they'll know
exactly what he's talking about.
For those who are just traveling along with him, he describes the seed that falls on the path
that's hard and that's been beaten down.
And Jesus says that the birds of the air, they come and they eat that seed.
Now, I know this is true from firsthand experience.
For the last three years, we've been trying to grow grass in our backyard.
And I'm too cheap to buy sod, right?
Anybody else been that person?
I'm that guy, right?
So every springtime I go and I cast out seed and every springtime I go and I set my sprinklers
and I do all the things.
I go and put out fertilizer and everything that needs to happen and take place.
But the one thing that my HOA will not let me regulate is getting rid of the birds that
fly into the yard, right?
I'll have the police called on me if we try to get rid of them, right?
So Jesus said, this is what happens.
But in his explanation, and this is important too for something we're talking about later.
He said, the birds, they're the devil.
And I want us to understand in two things that we're going to look at this morning are the
spiritual warfare that takes place when the gospel is shared and when life transformation happens.
Like Satan is at work and is battling to rob people of the hope of the gospel.
But Satan is also trying to come through and for those who hear to rob this from him.
And so Jesus says, this is the first group of people.
The seed falls, it's taken away, it's on the hard path and then there's no fruit.
But he says there's also, there's a second seed and it falls on the rocky ground.
Now, at first, when you hear that, you think of like it falling literally on a bunch of different
rocks that are out there, but that's not really what's happening.
What Jesus is talking about there in this area region where Jesus would be is there's areas
that would have a very thin layer of topsoil on top.
And so, okay, this would be good for farming, but underneath were rocks.
And so what would happen is the seed would fall down, it would immediately hit this topsoil,
it would get all of the water that it would need and it would begin to grow and it would
begin to produce and look pretty.
But immediately the heat would come.
And since the ground would not be there to hold the moisture, the sun would come up.
It would beat down on it and it would wither and it would die and it would go away.
And Jesus describes this as people who hear the word of God and they respond to it.
And then the trials, the suffering, the issues of life happen, right?
Like here's the thing about the gospel of Christ.
The gospel of Jesus Christ does not take away pain and suffering.
The gospel of Jesus Christ does not take away difficulty.
But Jesus says, for those who receive it in a thin layer, this is what happens.
And so it withers and it dies.
He says, but the third seed, the third seed is going to fall and it's going to fall on the
ground that grows things.
In fact, there are things that are already growing there and it falls amongst the ground where weeds
and thorns are found.
And so as the plant grows, as the crop grows, so too does the weeds and the thorns.
And eventually, not at first, but eventually over time, what happens?
It begins to choke out the plant.
And the plant doesn't survive.
And the plant doesn't produce fruit.
Well, later on in Jesus' explanation, he explains what these weeds and thorns are.
And I think this is really important for us as we begin to understand.
Jesus describes these as life's worries, life's riches, and life's pleasures.
Both the bad things and the good things of the world.
That oftentimes people hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, but what consumes them are the things
of this world.
The bad things of this world, the good things of this world, the things that they push after.
And so because of that, they don't bear fruit.
They don't last.
It doesn't withstand over the test of time.
But Jesus says that there's a fourth seed.
And the fourth seed falls into the good soil.
And over time, it is watered, and it is taken care of, and it becomes healthy.
And Jesus says it produces fruit.
And because of that, we see life.
I heard this a couple weeks ago, and it's just really stuck with me, and even thought about
this as Aaron and I, as we like to garden and grow fruits and vegetables at our house.
And the person that was talking about this, he said this.
He said, you know, fruit is not intended for the crop.
But fruit is intended for the person who picks it.
And I got to thinking about this.
In our yard, we got a lot of different things.
All year long, we've got something growing, right?
And one of the things that we like to grow, that we like to experience and eat is apples.
And so we got these apple trees in a back corner of our yard, and we take care of them, and we fertilize
them, and we, about the fall season, what we begin to see are apples begin to come through.
And we get them, and we can them, and we eat them, and we love them.
But here's the thing.
The apple tree is not better because it has apples.
But we take part in the fruit.
And I get to think about this in your life and mine.
When we bear the fruit of the gospel, it's not for our benefit.
It's for the benefit of those who will get to partake in and experience that.
It's for those who, by encountering with us, they get to understand what the hope of Jesus Christ is.
And so this is what missional living begins to look like.
But Jesus gives a warning at the end of this explanation.
In fact, look down at Luke 8, 15.
Jesus says this,
For that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
So here's why I went through all of that explanation of that parable, as the foundation of what we're going to look at.
Twice now, in the first 15 verses, Jesus says there's an important thing that we need to talk about, and it's hearing.
It's hearing.
And for you and I this morning, it is hearing Jesus.
He very first, at the end of the parable, says,
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Now he comes back, and the explanation of it, and he says,
They are those who do what?
Who hear the word.
But Jesus builds on that.
It's about hearing the word, hold it fast, and in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
So we see, and we begin to understand, that hearing Jesus should respond to something in our lives.
Right after this, Jesus tells another story about a lamp under a jar, and in verse 18, he warns them again about hearing.
He says this,
For to the one who has more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.
It is careful in how you hear.
Church, as we come in, and as we gather this morning, whether you're sitting in your living room, or you're sitting in the auditorium,
as you go from here from day to day, and you enter into your quiet time with the Lord,
as you go to your Bible studies, whether they're face-to-face, or over Zoom, or at restaurants, or wherever you're meeting right now,
as you seek to dive into God's word, I want us to take for a moment and say that there's this great importance
that Jesus has filled the first half with Luke 8 with, and as Luke is recording all of this,
and giving it to his friend Theophilus, so that he'll understand who Christ is, and the life with him,
and he says this, he says, hearing Jesus matters.
And over this week, I began to think about that.
Like, God, how am I listening to you?
How am I hearing you?
When I approach my study every single week, as I open up your word, as I read commentaries,
God, how am I hearing you?
God, as I dive into study for school, and as I open textbooks, and as I listen to professors,
Lord, Lord, what am I doing?
What does that hearing look like?
When I get online and listen to other pastors as they help shepherd me in my journey and walk to the Lord,
how am I hearing?
You see, oftentimes we talk about what are we hearing,
but I want us this morning to look at how we are hearing.
And I find that in my life this week, I've noticed four sinful ways that I try to hear,
even when I'm diving into Scripture.
And maybe you do as well.
The first sinful way that I hear is we can hear with a goal to affirm.
And here's what I mean by this.
I only want to hear the things and draw from the things that affect me positively.
Right?
Like, give me the good stuff without the bad, Jesus.
Give me the good stuff without the bad and the text that I read and the sermon that I listen to.
And so I run this filter of God's truth through my life,
and I only want the things that are going to speak positively into my life.
Another way that we sinfully hear is we can hear to disagree.
We're looking for a fight.
We're looking for a theological argument.
We're looking for something.
And I'm working on my second master's degree.
In a couple of weeks, I'm turning in a packet of information
so that hopefully I can be accepted into a doctoral program.
Okay?
Education, it matters, and it has helped me greatly.
So what I'm not about to say is not saying that education doesn't matter.
But I think oftentimes that we can approach God's Word with an intellectual heart only
and completely miss the transformation of what God's going to do.
And that's what I mean by hearing to disagree, to argue a point,
to gain some theological knowledge that's going to fill our head
but never transfer into our heart and transform us.
We can hear to enable.
Here's what I mean about this.
I want to read to help me feel better about the bad things about me.
It's a little bit different than affirming.
Affirming just says, tell me how good I am.
Let me hear to enable just means when I acknowledge the bad things that I have of what God wants
to do, can you make them sound not so bad to me anymore?
I was meeting with a group of college students a couple weeks ago, and we talked a lot about this,
and they didn't understand it.
And I said, here's what can happen in Bible study and discipleship sometimes.
And I find myself, like, balancing this.
Like, someone in the room needs to confess something, right, which is biblical.
Not that we can forgive you, but there's help that happens, is what James tells us,
when we confess our sins to one another, okay?
So we begin to confess.
And so let's say all week that you've been burdened on your heart, this sinful tendency
that's in your life, and God says, you need accountability, you need people to confess this to.
And so you come into group after prayer, after working through this, and you say, oh, I'm going to pick lust.
And you say, you know what?
I've really been struggling with lust.
It hasn't been just this past week, but it's been for years in my life, and it's affected so many relationships.
It's reflected in my relationship with my spouse.
And I need to come here to confess this.
And somebody in the group with good intentions says, oh, it's okay.
You're not that bad.
We all struggle with that.
And in their kindness for that, what we can begin to pick up on is, well, maybe I did overreact a little bit.
Maybe I'm not as bad as I was.
And we can have a tendency to hear to enable.
The fourth thing that I think is sinful in our ways, and when it's solely focused in on this, is we can hear to fix.
We can view ourselves like a math problem.
Help me figure out this next step so that I can just move to the next step, so that I can just move to the next step, so I can continue to alter myself and fix myself, instead of allowing the transforming work of the gospel.
And so what I want us to look at this morning of where we're journeying to in this very long introduction that I apologize for, right, is that Jesus is calling us to a different type of hearing.
Jesus is calling us to a hearing that responds.
To a hearing that responds.
Look down in verse 19 of Luke 8.
It says,
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd.
In verse 20.
And he was told,
Your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you.
Verse 21.
And we begin to see this narrative of what is happening in the life of the ministry of Jesus as he's conveying this is what following after me looks like.
This is what seeking after me looks like.
And kind of jump ahead to where we're going to be in chapter 9 when he says,
This is what it's going to mean to take up your cross.
This is what life after me is going to look like.
So you hear this.
You hear the word of God.
And then what is transforming in you is a heart, is an attitude, is a posturing of obedience that's there.
And so what I want us to look at this morning is hearing that responds, but also hearing that responds consistently.
Because here's what I think you and I are good at, right?
Like in the moment when the tragedy, in the moment when the crisis, in the moment where we feel the heat,
we've walked through this and now I want to obey Jesus.
Now this is the time.
Like now is when prayer is going to get real.
Now is when I'm going to dive into your word.
Now is when I'm going to share.
Now is when this is going to really take place in my life.
Now that the heat's come up.
Now that the crisis is there.
But what I want us to do is to understand that our walk with the Lord,
what we do in the routine will show the true fruit and will become who we are in the crisis.
What we do in the routine of the everyday life of which God has given us this opportunity to hear and to respond to him
is going to matter when the crisis hits.
It's going to be the faith that bears fruit.
It's going to be the faith that withstands when Satan comes and attacks.
It's going to be the faith that withstands when the rocky soil is there.
It's going to be the faith that responds when the weeds and the thorns come up to consume us.
That this is what the faith will look like.
Before I got into ministry, it was my hope and my dream to be a college football coach.
And so I started out coaching at the high school football level.
And I coached offensive line at a high school in our state.
And I would get out there and I would work with our players.
And I would tell our offensive line, look guys, you're different.
A receiver has to worry about them.
They go out there, they run their route.
A quarterback has to worry about them.
They have to look at their reads and what they're supposed to do and their footwork.
The running back has to worry about them with where they have to go in order to get the ball or to make the block.
But you guys, you've got to work together as a team.
We've got to build unity.
In fact, what we called our offensive line was the dancing bears.
Because I told them, like, blocking for football, it's like this dance as we all move together, right?
And some of you who are married to individuals like me who don't have rhythm, you know this.
When you begin to dance with somebody like us and we're offbeat, which is what we are multiple times, right?
It gets awkward and uncomfortable and it falls apart quickly, right?
And so I told them, like, this is where we have to be.
This is what we have to do.
And so I would always tell them, I don't care about Friday.
Friday doesn't concern me.
Game time doesn't concern me.
What concerns me is Monday through Thursday.
And what I'm going to see over the course of Monday through Thursday will determine the confidence that I have in you guys as you go forward with the game plan we laid out before you.
And almost every time, barring something like an injury or something that we could not see coming, I could tell you on Thursday night after practice how my offensive line was going to do, win or lose.
And I was always right.
Because the routine of their week, the work that they put in, what they developed in the moment in their obedience, step here, not there.
Put your hand here, not there.
Look here, not there.
What they did Monday through Thursday, when Friday came, it was just who they were.
When the light's cut on, when the opponent is before them, it's who they were.
So the crisis didn't matter.
It was in the day-to-day.
And so Jesus says, those who hear the word of God and do it.
In Luke 8, we're going to see some storms.
And I'm going to tell you guys, I'm going to paraphrase a lot of this.
But we're going to see what it looks like in responding in the storms of life, in those moments where the lights are cut on, in the moment where the heat gets turned up, in the moment where difficulty begins to reign, in the moment where opposition is facing us.
We're going to see some storms that Jesus walks through with individuals.
And we'll find, while you've never maybe been there, we've been in something like it.
The first storm that I want us to look at is the storm of perception.
And here's what I mean by storms of perception is this.
Regardless of what other people can see, regardless of what other people are going through, you're so stuck in the middle of the storm, all you see is chaos with no way out.
So Jesus, in Luke 8, he gets into a boat with his disciples.
And Jesus says, let's head to the other side of the lake.
So they sail over there, right?
This is important as we remember the context of what's taking place.
This isn't a lake like Lake Murray where you can paddle to the other side quickly.
As they get in, they're not seeing the other side of the lake.
Also, let's just make sure, this is a sailing and a rowing culture, right?
Like, unfortunately, the motor hadn't kicked in yet for them, okay?
So they're heading over.
It's a long journey.
Now, Jesus falls asleep during this time.
And while Jesus is asleep, a huge storm comes and water begins to fill the boat.
Now, this is where I feel like Jesus and I are a lot alike.
I can sleep through anything, you know?
I don't know how you are, if any of you are this way, but I can't tell you how many times, like, we'll wake up in the morning and I'll look at my wife and say, how was your night of sleep?
And she'll go, really?
I didn't sleep at all.
Well, why not?
Did you not hear the car alarm go off?
Nope.
Did you not hear the dogs barking?
Nope.
Did you not hear that man in our house who snored all night long?
Nope.
I didn't hear any of those things, right?
I slept right through it all.
And so this is where we find Jesus.
He's asleep.
And they come and they wake him up.
And they wake him up with panic.
They wake him up in screaming because in the chaos that surrounds them, they are about to die, right?
The people on the shore aren't having this conversation.
The people who got an earlier start and who are on the other side of the lake, they've already been through the storm and there's clear waters where they are.
But for the perception of the people who are right there, they are about to die.
They've convinced themselves in their mind.
And maybe they are and maybe they aren't.
But they come to Jesus and he steps in.
And with his very words, he calmed the storm.
And he asked him this.
He says, where is your faith?
Jesus placed him on the boat.
Jesus said, let's go to the other side.
Where is your faith?
They had Jesus, but they couldn't see beyond their perception of their reality.
And so that's the storms of the perception.
Maybe that's where you find yourself.
Other storm that we are going to see is the storm of spiritual attacks.
Here's what I want to say.
Don't let our logic and wanting to explain things away in easy manners convince us that there's not spiritual battles that are happening all the time around you and to you.
All right?
All right.
God has won.
The victory has been decided.
We know and we live in that.
But for whatever reason, in the sovereignty of God, of what God is continuing to work and move of the lives of his church,
as God is calling, God is saving, and God is redeeming people to himself,
there is spiritual warfare that is happening and taking place.
Men and women of faith are being attacked in their boldness to share.
And Satan is living in the moment for those who have the opportunity here before it can take root to take that away from them.
Okay?
So let's not forget that there's real spiritual attacks that are happening and taking place.
And maybe you right now feel that that's where you are.
In the relationships that you have, in the work that you're trying to do, in all of these things,
you feel the spiritual attack.
What's what we see in the life of a man who's going to greet Jesus?
In Luke 8, when the storm is calmed and they get to the other side to land,
Jesus is greeted by a man who, Scripture tells us, walked around naked,
lived amongst the tombs, and was possessed by a legion, so multiple demons.
And he's known for this.
He's the crazy naked man who lives in the cemetery, who is possessed by demons,
and he's the one that greets Jesus.
And he knows who he is.
Or at least the demons in him do.
And as Jesus and him encounter,
he declares that he knows who Jesus is,
and he begs Jesus not to torment him.
We'll paraphrase in a lot.
We'll say this.
Jesus sets this man free.
Jesus calls the demons from him,
sets this man free,
gets victory in the moment of this.
And word gets back to the town.
You can imagine people know who this guy is.
Word gets back to him that this is what has happened,
that this is what has taken place.
And so they come out to see for themselves what is going on.
And Scripture tells us that they find him clothed in his right mind
and sitting at the feet of Jesus.
And so we see the victory in the storm of the spiritual world.
But we also are going to see the storm of suffering.
There are a lot of things.
What is this?
It's tax season, right?
There's only two things that we can be sure of, death and taxes.
Well, I want to say this.
We can be sure of suffering.
It's a guarantee of this life.
How we define something is neither here nor there,
but we can be guaranteed that whether you're found in Christ or you're not,
you're going to experience suffering in this world.
And in Luke chapter 8, we see two instances of suffering.
The first suffering is from a dad named Jairus and his daughter.
And he comes to Jesus.
He's a religious leader.
And he comes to Jesus and he says,
Hey, Jesus, my daughter is fixing to die.
She's on death's bed.
Will you come to my house and heal her?
And so he and Jesus begin this journey to his house.
And on their way there, I think there's lots of application we could look at in this, in our own lives,
or maybe even the conversations we have with people.
There's someone who comes to him and says,
It's too late.
She's dead.
Think about this.
Have we ever found ourselves in moments in our life where we could look at and say,
Spiritually speaking, Jesus is too late for you.
But that's what they say.
Jesus, it is too late.
She has died, but Jesus goes anyway.
And when he gets there, he takes her by the hand and brings hope into a lost situation of suffering
as the girl rises and finds new life.
The other instance of suffering happens on the way to this man's house
where there's a woman who's been suffering from a physical conditioning,
a condition of bleeding, and it's been happening for 12 years.
And because of this condition, she's a social, she's a religious outcast in her community.
She has spent her money in the last 12 years trying to figure out what's going on.
And in her world, she is the leper who was found there who cannot interact with anyone.
But she hears that Jesus is coming.
She hears that Jesus is there.
And so she works her way through the crowd, keeping herself hidden.
She won't even cry out to him that Jesus to come and touch me and heal me.
Or even Jesus, speak the word.
And as she can get close enough to him, she reaches out and she touches the hem of his robe.
And immediately she's healed.
And Jesus asked, who touched me?
Because Jesus feels the power rush out of him.
And she comes before him and she kneels.
And so what we see here in the lives of these individuals is people who have an encounter with Jesus.
But my question for them is my question for you.
What are they going to do with it?
What's the obedience going to look like in their life?
If you're here and you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you've had an encounter with him.
What are you going to do with it?
If you're here for the very first time, you hear the gospel of what Jesus has done for you through his death and through his life and the resurrection.
The question is, what are you going to do with it?
For you, does it fall on the path that will go away?
Will it fall in the thin topsoil and as soon as suffering comes, it's going to burn away?
Will it fall amongst the weeds and the thorns and the distractions of life and never mature?
Because here's what I believe for most of us as Christians.
The reason why we stay immature in our faith is because we're living amongst the weeds and the thorns.
We can't get past the worries and the pleasures to achieve and to see and to be blessed with the fruit of the gospel.
Or will it grow?
Will it thrive?
And will people be blessed because of the fruit that God produces in you?
How we respond matters.
When you hear God, when you see God, what you do with that matters.
Those that were in the boat during the storm, of all the fear that raged amongst them, look at verse 25.
He said to them, where is your faith?
And they were afraid and they marveled, saying to one another, who then is this that he commands even the winds and waters and they obey him?
One of the beautiful things of our response to God, I believe, is the response of wonder.
This is a group who had been around Jesus.
They had heard his teaching.
They had seen his miracles.
But when through his words he calmed the storm, they asked the question, who then is this?
The response of wonder.
As much as they knew Jesus, they wanted to know him more.
So here's the question that I have for us today.
Are you content in the depth of your relationship with Jesus?
Or is every new day a new opportunity to know him more?
To find out more beautiful truths about him?
And to experience the fullness of who he is.
Could you respond to Christ in wonder?
For the man who was possessed by the demons.
I can't imagine there being a man filled with more stories that were both true and untrue told about him.
I bet he would have filled the social media of the world of guess what Legion did today.
He'd have been the story that kids stay up late at night talking at campfires about the guy named Legion who roams through the tombs.
Who's naked and who could imagine the things that he would do.
But look at how he responds to Jesus.
Verse 39.
Jesus says, return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.
And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
It's the response of sharing.
I see some of you got your pen and your pencil out and your paper.
Maybe some of you don't.
Whether you're a writer or you're a thinker and you're just kind of processing this.
I want to ask you a question.
Then I want you to think about this.
And you're just going to be honest with yourself in the Holy Spirit.
Who was the last person you shared the hope of Christ with?
For many, for many, we can sit there and think, and we can think, and we can think, and that line is going to remain blank.
Jesus doesn't say, hey, go home and break down Isaiah for everybody.
Right?
Jesus doesn't go, hey, man, like, head back to your hometown and explain the depth of everything in Scripture to him.
Jesus says, go home and tell everyone how much God has done for you.
I don't care who you are.
If you are in Christ, you can tell people that.
There is no training that takes that.
It's the story of a new life that tells him.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to a college student at a Christian university, and I asked the same question.
He gave me his answer.
He said, no one.
He's going into ministry.
And I said, you can't tell me the last person who was lost that you shared the hope of Jesus with.
And he said, no, but it's not my fault.
I said, why not?
He said, well, I don't know any lost people.
Okay, here's the solution.
Go find some.
Go get out of this spiritual world that we've created for ourselves where it is okay for Christians and lost people to intimately know each other in the depth of a relationship where we can have conversations about Jesus.
Go share.
What about the woman who was healed from the bleeding?
Verse 47 and 48,
And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.
And he said, daughter, your faith has made you well.
Go in peace.
It's the response of humility.
I love this.
She's busted.
She's caught.
What does she do?
She falls down at his feet.
Now I want to ask you this.
When it comes to the healing that you and I desire for God, this is my confession moment.
This is my repentance this week.
When I oftentimes come before the Lord, my posturing in who I am as a believer is not by falling down, but is looking up in a sense of pride and arrogance that, God, this is what I deserve.
But what we see in her is the response of humility, of head bowed before him.
Let me ask you this.
As we respond to Christ, does it drive you to his feet?
And then the last one, and we're going to wrap up with this, to the girl who was given life, Luke 8, 56.
I love this.
I mean, all right, parents, put yourselves here.
Dads, put yourself here.
It's your baby girl.
And her parents were amazed.
But he charged them to tell no one what had happened.
And in that moment, in the intimacy of just a couple of people with Jesus, a girl goes from life to death.
And it's the amazement that they find in God.
And I have to imagine that in that small room in the middle of nowhere, that amazement was coming from a heart of worship.
That couldn't be performed by a team.
That couldn't be created in an environment that was only found when people responded to dead people coming alive.
And the reality for all of us, I've never been on a boat and thought I was going to die.
I've never been demon-possessed and been set free.
I've never suffered from a sickness and been isolated for 12 years as a result of it.
I've never been physically dead and brought back to life.
But I have been in the middle of the chaos.
I have been in the middle of the battle.
I have seen healing and restoration of a relationship take place.
I have seen new identity formed.
And I've been spiritually dead and brought back to life.
And if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, so have you.
But what are we going to do with it?
Would you pray with me?
God, I thank you so much for this opportunity that we have to be here.
Lord, I thank you for your grace and your kindness and your compassion.
Lord, I thank you and I repent of my spiritual arrogance, Lord, of sometimes of how I approach you.
Lord, give me the ability.
Lord, give me the posturing of humility to continually fall down at your feet.
Lord, I pray for those of us who are here in this room or who are watching online.
Lord, I pray for us as we look at this.
Lord, I pray that we would have ears to hear.
Lord, I pray that we would, in hearing the word of God, hold it fast in our hearts.
Lord, I pray that we would assess how we hear and that our hearing of the word of God would call us into action.
Lord, I pray for those of us who are in response to you.
Jesus, whether it's someone here who needs to respond to you for the very first time, repenting of their sins.
Lord, I pray for those of us who are in response to you, Lord, I pray that you would work and move in the lives of the individuals that are here.
Lord, and draw us closer to you.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
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