Legion: Valuing People Above Everything People Jesus Met, Part 12 Lon Solomon McLean Bible Church May 17, 2009

Transcription

1 Legion: Valuing People Above Everything People Jesus Met, Part 12 Lon Solomon McLean Bible Church May 17, 2009 Hey you know, I want us to say a big good morning to all of our friends out at our Loudoun campus and also to our friends watching around the world on our Internet campus. When I say three, we re all going to yell, Good morning! Are you ready? One, two, three GOOD MORNING! We re so glad you re with us. About two weeks ago, the Pew Research Center released the results of a new nationwide survey. The survey focused on Americans who had switched religions from the religion of their birth to something else. In other words, it looked at Catholics who had become Protestants, Protestants who had become Catholics, and Jewish people who had become Christians. As far as I was concerned, the most interesting thing that this survey discovered was that 16% of those surveyed that s one out of every six Americans have switched from either Catholicism or Protestantism to no religion at all. When the pollsters asked these no religion at all people why they quit going to church, almost all of them gave one of three answers according to the survey. Number one, religious people are too hypocritical and judgmental of others. Number two, churches focus too much on rules. Number three, church leaders focus too much on accumulating power and money. When I thought about this survey, it occurred to me that really all three of these answers are really trying to say the very same thing, namely that religious people, churches, and church leaders really don t value people; that we value dogma, rules, power and money, but we really don t care about people. Whether or not this is really true is not the point. The point is that at least one out of six Americans and maybe more think it s true; that s the point. Friends, this is a serious problem, because if we ve given the impression to one or more out of six Americans that God s value system is all about power, money, rules, and legalistic

2 dogma instead of being about people, then our chances of reaching these folks for Jesus Christ is very slim indeed. This is what we want to talk about today as we continue in our series entitled People Jesus Met. Today we re going to watch as Jesus meets a fellow named Legion. We want to talk about the value, the importance that God places on people and how that should affect our lives today as individual followers of Christ and how it should affect our lives today as a church family here at McLean Bible Church. So here we go in Mark 5:1. Then Jesus and His disciples went across the lake to the land of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus got out of the boat, a demon-possessed man came from the tombs to meet Him. Now the lake that the Bible is referring to here we ll show you a map is the Sea of Galilee. What the Bible tells us is that Jesus and His disciples got in a boat and went from the north side of the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum, their headquarters, and sailed to the east side of the Sea of Galilee to a place that is today called Kursi. In fact, there s a church here at Kursi today that is the ruins of a 4 th century A.D. church that commemorates the event that we re about to read about. If you look up in the hills above this church, you can actually see to this day some of the natural caves that were used as tombs at the time of Christ. From one of these caves, from one of these tombs comes this man that we re about to meet. Now you say, Well, Lon, wait a minute, wait a minute. The Bible says this is a demon-possessed man. You don t really believe that, do you? I mean, this is like the 21 st century. Do you really believe that there s a devil, that there are demons and that this man was full of real demons? Absolutely, I do! You say, But I always thought that the devil and demons in the Bible were just symbolic, that they were just like allegorical for all the evil in the world. No, no, the Bible teaches very clearly that the devil, Satan, is a real angelic being who led a revolt against God before the world was created. There were some angels who cooperated in this revolt who became demons in our world today. As a result of this revolt, the Bible says the devil and his demons were cast out of heaven, and even though they are loose here on the earth today, the Bible tells us they are still subject to God s authority. Even at the end of this age, their final destination is going to be the bottom of hell, the abyss

3 at the bottom of the pit, according to Revelation 20. That s the fastest course in demonology you are ever going to get! The point is that I totally believe that this man had demons inside of him, because the Bible says it. If you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant Word of God, then you need to believe it too. As Jesus meets this man, we need to remember the power that He has already demonstrated to His disciples and the people around Him. He s already demonstrated, first of all, power over sickness and disease. In Mark chapter 1, He heals Peter s mother-in-law. In Mark 2, He heals the man on the pallet, the man on the stretcher who couldn t walk. Second, Jesus has already demonstrated His power over death. In Luke chapter 7, He has already raised back to life the son of the widow of Nain; we looked at that a few weeks ago. Third, Jesus has already demonstrated His power over the forces of nature. In Mark chapter 4, just before this, as they re sailing over to Kursi, you remember there was a huge storm on the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus quieted the storm by simply saying, Hush up. So much so that His disciples said in Mark 4:41, What kind of man is this that even the winds and the waves obey Him? Now here in Mark chapter 5, Jesus is about to demonstrate His power over the devil and over his kingdom of demons. Watch. Here we go in verse 3. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain, for he had often been chained hand and foot, but he would tear the chains apart and break the irons on his feet, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. How sad is this? And when he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees before Him and shouted at the top of his voice, What do You want with me, Jesus, Son of the most high God? Swear to God that You won t torture me, for Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you evil spirit. Now would you please notice the great contrast here? No human power, no human authority could tame these demons, and yet they fell down powerless at the

4 feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. It s very interesting what the demons actually say. Theophilus (spelling?), the church father from the 11 th century, said, While the men in the boat were wondering what kind of man this is, the demons came to give them the answer. He is the Son of the most high God. Well, verse 9 says, Then Jesus asked the demon, What is your name? And the demon said, My name is Legion, for we are many inside this man. Remember, a Roman legion had 6,000 soldiers in it, so this man must have had a bunch of demons inside him. Verse 10, And the demons begged Jesus again not to send them out of the area. But there was a large herd of pigs feeding on a nearby hillside, and the demons begged Jesus to allow them to go into the pigs, so Jesus gave them permission. The demons came out of the man and went into the pigs. Now these pigs that were over there were being tended, being kept, being raised as a money-producing industry for the town that was there. You say, Lon, pigs? What in the world are the Jewish people over there doing raising pigs? Well, that s a great question. We know from archaeology that, at the time of Jesus, the east side of the Jordan was not populated by Jewish people; it was populated by Gentiles. For these Gentiles, raising pigs was a major industry. Verse 13, Then the herd of pigs, about 2000 in number, rushed down the steep bank and into the lake and were drowned. We need to understand that this represented a gigantic financial loss for the people of that town. I mean, I don t know how much a pig was worth in that day, but 2000 of them certainly was a financial catastrophe for the people in this town, and it explains what happens next. Verse 14, Then those who were tending the pigs see, they were not wild pigs; people were out there watching them ran off and reported this in the town and the countryside. So all the townspeople went out to see for themselves, and when they got there, they found the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there dressed and in his right mind. Meanwhile, of course, all their pigs were floating in the Sea of Galilee like little corks. Do you understand what I m saying here? The herdsmen who went and got the townspeople all pointed at Jesus and said, Him! That

5 guy right there is the one who did all of this. Everything you see, He did it right over there! Now stop for a moment and think what we have here. On the one hand, we have this human being, Legion, whose pathetic life has been redeemed, restored and reclaimed by the Lord Jesus Christ sitting clothed in his right mind. On the other hand, you ve got 2000 dead pigs, representing a huge financial loss. So watch what happens next in verse 17. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. Now why would they do this? Why did they beg Jesus, Hey, we don t know where You re from or how You got here, but we want You to go right back wherever You came from? Why did they do this? Well, friends, think about it. They did it because they didn t want to lose any more pigs! It s just simple as that. I mean, think. There must have been lots of sick people back in their town, don t you think? There must have been lots of people who had every kind of illness and infirmity you could think of. Wouldn t it be logical to say to yourself, My gosh, if Jesus could heal this guy out here, think what He could do for all the people back in our town! Why don t we take Him back there and let Him heal everybody in town? But instead, no. All these townsfolk cared about is how many more pigs they might lose if He stuck around. Verse 18, And as Jesus was getting back in the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with Him, but Jesus would not allow him to go. Instead, Jesus told him, Return home and tell everyone how much God has done for you and how He has had mercy on you. I mean, Jesus could have said, Hey, they just rejected Me, and you know, Legion, they ve been rejecting you for years. Come on, get in the boat. Forget these people. We re going somewhere else. Let them do whatever they want to do. No, no, no. In spite of their rejection, Jesus still loved these people. Jesus still valued these people, so He left Legion over there to be a traveling evangelist and to go around telling people everywhere on the east side of the Jordan, on the east side of the Sea of Galilee about Christ and what Christ had done for him. This was the first Billy Graham in the world, the first open-air preacher in the world, commissioned to bring the gospel

6 to the east side of the Sea of Galilee. So the man went away and began to tell the whole town how much Jesus had done for him. Now that s as far as we want to go in the passage right now, because we want to stop and ask our most important question. So, we re ready, yes? (audience responds) All you people at Loudoun and all you people on the Internet, I want to hear you yell too, so here we go, nice and loud. One, two, three SO WHAT? Yeah, that s good! Whoo! You say, All right, Lon, so what? This is a great story, but what difference does any of this make to me? I don t own any pigs. What difference does any of this make to me? Let s talk about that. You know, the most tragic part of this whole story is the value system that the people of this town displayed, namely that they valued their pigs more than they valued people. Yet you know, the rabbis in Jesus time had the very same problem. It wasn t pigs that they valued more than people, obviously, but it was their rules, their traditions, and all of their positions of power. Either way, folks, it s the very same disease. Watch in Matthew 12:9. Then Jesus entered a synagogue on the Sabbath, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a basis on which to accuse Jesus, the rabbis asked Him, Is it lawful to heal a man on the Sabbath? Now we need to remember that the rabbis had compiled twelve books full of rules about what you couldn t do on the Sabbath. These rules were unbelievably oppressive. The worst part of all is that none of them were in the Bible! For example, a person was not allowed to walk more than 3000 feet from their home on the Sabbath. To do more than that would be work. A person was not allowed to swat an insect on the Sabbath, because that would be doing the work of an exterminator, and you re not allowed to work on the Sabbath. Women were not allowed to look in the mirror at themselves on the Sabbath, because the rabbi said they might see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out, which would be doing the work of a beautician, which is not allowed on the Sabbath. People were not allowed to climb a tree, to ride a horse, to swim, to clap their hands, to dance, or even to spit on

7 the ground on the Sabbath. And certainly, people were not allowed to do the work of a doctor and heal people on the Sabbath. Verse 11, So Jesus said to them, Hey, fellows, if any of you has a sheep, and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? You don t let it drown. How much more look at this valuable is a man than a sheep? Then Jesus said to the man, Stretch out your hand. So the man stretched out his hand, and it was completely restored. You say, Well, Lon, didn t Jesus sin by breaking the Sabbath? Folks, Jesus did not break the Sabbath. There is nothing in the Bible that prohibits healing people on the Sabbath. What Jesus was breaking were the petty, legalistic rules of these rabbis, which listen now had become more important to the rabbis than people. Verse 14, But the rabbis went out and plotted from that point on how they might kill Jesus. Now in both of these stories, my friends, Jesus is trying to teach us the very same lesson. In the story of Legion and in the story of the man with the withered hand, the point is the same. The point is that, above everything else, God cares about people. Above everything else, God values people. I really believe today, as the evangelical church in America, this is a message that we desperately need to hear and be reminded of. You know, years ago, I used to go to lots of pastors conferences. When you go to pastors conferences, there are certain questions that pastors ask each other. I m sure if you went to a plumbers conference, if you re a plumber, that there must be certain plumbers ask each other. Or if you re an electrician, there must be certain electrician questions that you all ask each other. Well, there are certain pastor questions. Over the years, I kind of kept a running total in my head of what the five most popular questions pastors ask other pastors are, and here they are. Number one, what is your weekly attendance? (laughter) Number two, how big is your church building and your parking lot? Number three, how many people do you have on your church staff? Number four, how big is your church budget? Finally, number five, how many copies did your last book sell? I m not kidding you.

8 In fact, one of the reasons I stopped going to pastors conferences is because I got sick of trying to answer or not answer, really these questions! I got sick of saying, Well, the church is big enough, and the budget is big enough, and I don t know exactly how many people we have on staff. For many years, I didn t even have a book. They d say, How many copies did your last book sell? I d say, Well, I don t have one. Nobody wanted to talk to me after that. (laughter) But you know, the really sad part of this whole thing is that not once was I ever asked, Hey, last year at your church, how many people s lives got transformed for Jesus Christ? Never once was I asked that question. Hey, at your church last year, how many teenagers gave their lives to Christ and got reconciled with their parents? Hey, at your church last year, how many sexually active couples gave their lives to Christ and got married? Hey, at your church last year, how many people addicted to drugs or to pornography or to alcohol gave their lives to Christ and got free and got liberated? How many marriages were reconciled at your church last year? How many kids from the inner city did your church help change their lives and help them go to college last year? Never once did I get asked any of those questions. Let me repeat what I said. As the evangelical church, we desperately need to be reminded that Jesus did not die on the cross for buildings, for parking lots, for offering plates, for attendance figures, for staffing numbers, or for power-hungry pastors. Jesus died on the cross for people. Jesus gave His life on the cross for people. The big so what for us today here at McLean Bible Church, the difference that this makes and what this means for us at this church, what it means for us as individual followers of Christ is that we have a decision to make. The decision we have to make is simply this. Are we going to exhibit the value system of the people in Kursi, or are we going to exhibit the value system of the rabbis of Jesus day, or are we going to exhibit the value system of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are we going to define our success by buildings, parking lots, offering plates, attendance figures, and numbers of book sales, or are we going to define our success by how many people s lives we change for Jesus Christ for all of eternity? (applause)

9 The question is, are we going to open our arms to people of every race, of every creed, every economic situation, every background who are committing every sin known to man, even though it gets a little messy? Or are we going to insulate ourselves from all of this? That s not just a question for us as a church; it s a question for us as individuals as well if we re followers of Christ. I mean, the bottom line is, guys, are we going to be a hospital for sinners or a museum for saints? Are we going to be a MASH unit or a country club? This is the question. The rabbis wanted to be a country club. The people in Kursi didn t want to be a country club, but they just didn t want to get their hands dirty with Legion and people like that. They were just very comfortable making their money selling pigs and letting his life completely be whatever it was; they didn t want to get involved with that. You know, a number of years ago, we had a young man who started showing up here at McLean Bible Church. I ll never forget him. He would come in with torn jeans and long hair. He had multiple earrings and tattoos everywhere. He was unshaven. His eyes were always bloodshot. With him, every week, began to come this young lady whose dress could not be considered modest, no matter who was doing the defining, believe me. They would walk right down the middle aisle, all the way, and sit in the front row of the church. We had a few heads turn when they would walk down the aisle. They were here because they were looking for some answers. They looked terrible. I remember looking at them and thinking, Wow, you guys look awful! What s wrong with you? What I didn t know right away but learned later is that they both had advanced cases of AIDS that they had caught from dirty needles. They would sit right in the front row. They came for a couple of weeks, about three, four or five weeks in a row. To make a long story short, one Sunday while they were here, I gave a salvation appeal, like we often do here. I remember looking down and seeing the two of them holding hands, sitting in the front row, and I could see their mouths praying the sinner s prayer right along with me. They meant business too, folks. They never missed church a week after that. They were always in the front row, soaking up the Word of God.

10 You say, Yeah, but did they change how they dressed? Did he get a haircut? Did they get married? Honestly, they didn t have much time. I buried that young man less than three months after he sat in the front row and asked Christ into his life. The young lady did not live six months after that; she was gone. My question to you and my question to myself is, does McLean Bible Church have open arms for people like this? Does McLean Bible Church have room for people like this? I say yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Do you agree with me? (applause) Do we have open arms for these people so we can condone their sinful behavior? No, absolutely not, but we do have open arms for them so we can tell them about Jesus Christ, see them give their lives to Christ, see Christ make them into new creatures in Christ, and see them get eternal life. Yes, we have room for people for that purpose. This is why our core value number one here at McLean Bible Church is, People matter to God, and they matter to us. We have got to project to Washington, D.C., the true heart of God. We have got to project to the people of Washington, D.C., the true value system of God, not like the people of Kursi projected, not like the rabbis of Jesus day projected. We ve got to project to the people of this city that God s value system is not about money or power or offering figures or attendance numbers; it s about people, about helping people, about redeeming people. That s our job! And you know what? If we can communicate that to the people of this city and they really believe that s what we care about, then we ll get the opportunity to share Christ with a whole bunch of them. Let me say in closing that one of my favorite movies is Driving Miss Daisy. Have you seen that movie? Maybe the reason I like it so much is having grown up as a Jewish person in the South, watching that movie is like déjà vu of my life growing up, really. Do you remember the end of the movie? Do you remember the chauffeur named Hoke? He drives for her and drives for her. He tries to reach out to her. He tries to care for her, and he meets with nothing but rejection after rejection after rejection. Do you remember that? Finally at the end of the movie, Miss Daisy is in a nursing home. Hoke comes to see her, sits there and feeds her pumpkin pie. She says

11 to him, Hoke, you re the only friend I have left. By then, I m bawling like a baby. I mean, I m just a complete disaster zone. I m just a wreck. But here s the point, folks. Hoke had reached out to this woman and reached out to her and tried to value her and tried to care about her and tried to love her. She wanted none of it, and then all of a sudden, all of that came home, and all of that took root in her life. It occurred to me watching this movie once that McLean Bible Church and we as followers of Christ here are like Hoke for Washington, D.C. Our job is to reach out to this town with the true value system and the love of God. Does everybody in this town want to hear what we re telling them? No. Is everybody in this town interested in what we re trying to share with them? No. Miss Daisy wasn t either at first, but our job is to keep on reaching out and keep on reaching out and keep on reaching out in the hope that eventually some of those people will really believe that we re here for them. When they do, we ll get a chance to share Christ with them like we did those two people in the front row. Folks, this is our calling. This is our mission. This is our mandate. God left us, just like He left Legion, to go around and tell people what God has done and who He is. At least as long as I m the pastor of this church, and I hope long after that, this is how we re going to run this church, for the glory of God until Jesus comes back. (applause) I m glad you agree, so let s go out there and tell people who Jesus really is and what He really cares about, which is them. Let s pray. Lord Jesus, thank You for the reminder today that we as Christians, that we as the evangelical church desperately need to be reminded that You didn t leave us here to pursue money, power, or influence in this world system, but You left us here to pursue people, love on them, help them and care for them with the value system and the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, keep us as a church focused on what You really left us here to do. Lord Jesus, help us keep the main thing the main thing at this church and not be drawn away by the siren call of power and money and influence. But Lord Jesus, keep us focused on people and on reaching out to them with Your love. May that be true in our individual lives as well. Make us Legions, whom we understand our goal is to go around and tell people what the Lord Jesus has done for us and how He

12 has had mercy on us. So change our lives because we were here, Lord, and keep the life of this church focused where it needs to be, because we were here, Lord. Thanks for speaking to us today in Your Word. We pray these things in Jesus name, and God s people said, amen. Have a great week! Bless you.