Soul Searching

And we wouldn't pass the sermon off as for somebody else. Including myself. Help me not to think that the word of God is Not ministering to me and it's just missing two other people got. I pray that all of our hearts would be open. I pray that we'd recognize that Christmas is not. Just about a birthday. The god. It's about you. Keeping a covenant. It's about you, loving us from eons pass. It's about you showing us How much you value US? Even though. Sometimes we can't see the value in our own self. I pray today, God that if somebody is here, wondering if you are true wondering, if you are real wondering, God if they're in the right spot in life, that God that you would answer that with Clarity and with a force that they have never felt before. Pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Who in here, likes Christmas movies. Raise your hand. All right, good, who doesn't like Christmas is a raise your hand. And we got one, please. I'm just, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I think a lot of us most of us like Christmas movies and there's a reason why we like Christmas movies. And some of us might not understand it, but I think we like it because we like to watch bad parenting. That's the base is a pretty much all Christmas movies, right? Home alone. We got a jingle all the way we got absentee dads and Santa Claus. We got the Grinch with orphan. We don't know what happens if it's a lot of bad parenting and Christmas movies. Not really. I think we like Christmas movies because there is an element of soul searching that goes on. In each Christmas movie, it is a evaluation of what's actually the most important thing. What's what's going on in? In elf, there's this trying to figure out what where he fits in his dad is trying to figure out if it's his fatherhood his greatest calling or is it just his job? We got home alone. Macaulay Culkin is trying to figure out, you know what the essence of family truly is. You have the Grinch, just trying to evaluate why he is rejecting Community. Why is he in isolation? These movies highlight something within all of us, that there comes a point in time where The soul-searching that's going on. Evaluating. I think the scripture were about to get in today, is a Christmas story, and it might not seem like that in first, but as we're eating, as we get through, I think we'll be able To see it with me with two, Luke 8.

4626 to 39. If you need a Bible, please raise your hand. One of our members will get you a Bible.

Luke chapter 8, verses 26 through 39. And they sell and then they sell to the country of the gerasenes which opposite of Galilee when Jesus has stepped onto the Land. There met him, a man from a Citywide demons for a long time. He had warned no clothes and he had not lived in a house, but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice. What have you to do with me, Jesus? Son of the most high God, I beg. You do not torment me for. He had commanded the unclean Spirit to come out of the man, for many at a time. It had seized him and he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bond to be driven by the demon into the desert. And she's asking, what is your name? He said Legion for many demons had entered him, and They begged him not to command them to the, to their part to the abyss. And a large herd of pics of speeding there on the hillside, and They begged him to let them into these. So, he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man. Into the pigs, in the heart, Rush down for the Steep Bank, into the lake and drowned. When the husband saw what had happened, they fled and told it to the city in the country and then people went out and see what had happened. And they came out to Jesus and found a man from the demons have gone sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid, And those who have seen it, told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed and all the people of the surrounding country, the gerasenes ask him to depart from them, but they received with great fear. So he got into the boat and return the man from the from the demons, when the demons had gone bathe that, he would be with him, but Jesus sent him away saying return to your home declare, how much God has done for you? And he went away from claiming throughout the whole city, how much Jesus had done for him. God bless the reading in the hearing. I was worried. Christmas Story, right? What's going to tile this? Demons naked, men, pigs, Hallmark, Christmas classic, but that wouldn't fit on the slide.

Soul searching. Jesus and Edomite priests last weekend, just him and his disciples had come across the sea, the lake of Galilee, and it's about 40 miles away from Jesus's Hometown. They had crossed the storm that dealt with harsh weather. And Jesus told the weather to stop. They get to the other side to get to a gentile city of pagan City. That means they didn't have Jewish Customs. That means they didn't worship the almighty God, and this is going to come to be a factor later. And it says that once. Jesus steps on land. A man with no clothes runs up. Approaches him in his yelling. I don't want this to be made out to be like some kind of cartoons, like he was just, we'll get him know this man is tormented into his heart with these demons. Can you imagine man that probably hasn't showered for days months? Maybe years. He's been around death in Tunes around skeletons. Long hair, not shaving. Mark's account of the Gospel, there is blood means you cut himself, he was hurting himself. That means there's blood stains probably all over his body. it all of a sudden, he's running towards Jesus, and then when he gets the cheese, if he screams to the top of his lungs,

You screaming? I don't know when the last time. You heard a grown man? Scream

What would cause the Stillness that you feel right now? Somebody not in the right mind shrieking, screaming and torment. Can approach filled with demons. Filled with torment. And already we are. Caught with attention in our 21st century. Write some of us are thinking demons, we really believe that like those real. This might be what they interpreted back then. What is that? The reality because there's a spiritual reality and there's the materialistic. Physical reality worldview that we get caught up in.

See our day and age. We we we dismiss the spiritual realities. Of the Demonic Jellick because we have a foundation in western civilization that the human mind is top and it can interpret everything. Right. So everything that goes on everything that can be observed by the human eye can be interpret by the human mind. And because of that, that's why we dismissed the spiritual aspects of it. Of chaos that is seen of Destruction that seen that. The death that seen that unfamiliar behaviors. We interpreted that way. So we all accounted for chemical imbalance. Oh yes! Probably some family, trauma. I need some social changes. Maybe we can move the political scale and gave him some housing that would help the situation. I'm not saying that those things aren't good, but what I'm saying is incomplete, you see, how are mining? Our worldview is shaped by what we see. We think we can figure out everything by human solution. It says later on in this chapter that they bound him up but they had a guard watch over them. That means they put their towns resources to try to take care of this man. It was still of no avail. It could not hold this man down. They couldn't heal this man, they couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Ignoring spirituality, minimizes the actual problem. It's not that therapy reflecting. Medicine, dose things aren't necessary. It's just incomplete without the spiritual back. Is not going to be the healing process for everything. I like it's like breaking a leg or ankle or tearing the ACL if somebody tore their ACL or or broke their ankle, you could give them a crutch and that crutch would help them for season of time. But if that person does not get surgery, Not going to heal them properly. In the way that is needed.

See whether this man. Is broken in Jesus, if he approaches Jesus and some of us are our existing ourselves. So we don't understand this, man. This demon-possessed man is actually a mirror to our spiritual condition without Jesus. He's a mirror. I don't want you to other eyes him. Is I all? Yeah. I kind of seen some of those people on Van Buren. You don't like no this shows are disposition. I want us to go to Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians chapter 2.

Verses 1 through 3. This is the Apostle, Paul. Talking to episodes and he's talking to you.

It says this and you were dead. If I say dead in your trespasses and the sins. And what you want to walk following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air. That's just a fancy title for the devil. That's who you were following the spirit. That is not working. The sons of Disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and we were by Nature children of Wrath, like the rest of mankind. Don't authorize this demon possessed person saying your demon possessed if you don't know Christ. No I'm not saying that what weather is demon possession oppression or influence. All of us without Christ are being led astray by by Satan and what he wants us to follow to follow him away from God. I know it's not maybe the Christmas message you want to hear but it is the reality. In or sending in our flesh. We are Away. We are following Satan. And we can see right here. That's what are the symptoms of following. Not following God. What did the man possessed? He was in isolation. It was self-destruction, it was death. And this could look not as Extreme as him, but it could be as simple as me. Pushing away from all the realities of community and what God wants me to do, it can look like me, distracting my flesh with how I eat. How wide are taking certain substances, how I entertain myself? And I'm not supposed to get and I don't get up and move, it can look like I'm obsessed with death. I'm flirting with the things that would cause my flesh in my spirit to die. This man is a mirror to our spiritual condition without Christ. But we can't as we live in the twenty-first century and I talked about these remedies that we come up with to try to fix these symptoms, we can not mistake the symptom for the source because it would keep us from seeing the necessary change.

If you think, Everything can be solved by the human mind. And by modern medicine, by modern therapy.

By Community or political movements and things to do under my what is necessary for True change. The only person that can change the source is Jesus. Cuz even if you start your soul and figure out what's wrong with it, you got to ask yourself. Do you have the capabilities to fix? What is wrong? Answer is no. There's only one true, king one, true healer one, true break physician that can fix it all.

so, this man, Verse 23 project Jesus. He is shrinking he is crying out. He identifies Jesus as the most high God.

A question, he says was in verse 28. He says, what have you to do with me? Jesus, the most high God. Oh Jesus. I be like, bro, you approached me

and that ironic, That the man ran up on Jesus, but then asked him, what do you want from me? But isn't that a lot of our postures? Do we not come to church? Do not go towards Jesus and then, yes, we are facing like, what do you want from me? Jesus.

God, I want to follow you but yeah, I don't want to give this up. I do want to keep my screen time up. I do want to keep my bad habits up. What do you want from me? Jesus. He approaches him and he identifies him. And the question that he has, what do you want from me? Insinuates that Jesus is there to change things. I don't know about you but when I grew up and I was playing my Sega Genesis, my mom would walk into the room if she walked into the room. She's not watch there to watch me defeat Eggman.

I would never ask a question. What do you want from me? I wouldn't ask that to my mom, but when she came into the room, I knew there was something that had to change. I better pause that game. I probably forgot the laundry apartment. Probably forgot to do something for her. Mere presence was to show me that hate. Something's going to change in this room your activities or something. That's the same thing. Jesus Sovereign present provoked. This man to ask. What do you want from me? What's going to change?

What do you have for me? But it's

you look after you asked the question, he's already interpreting. What type of change Jesus is going to bring? What did he say next? I beg you. Do not torment me.

The man believes. Jesus going to torment him. And actually Jesus was there to transform him.

He interprets transformation is torment.

That's the Demonic lie and Satan's agenda is to make transformation with like torment to make death look like life and make life look like death. I'll give you a personal example. Elder Donovin a couple months ago, ran a half-marathon with his wife. They did an awesome job. I was like man homeschooling running half marathons are super paranoid. I don't know how they're doing it. You know what? I never run distance. I never I'm an incline Walker on the treadmill. That's that's what I am. 7.0 3.5 mph. That's where I'm at. You know what? I'm going to run a mile today so I can get on Google Maps and I map out a mi on it and Mike Donovan to cure them motivated. Me Friday got to pick the kids up in about 45 minutes to run this Mi before I pick up the kids. I run that Mi I have no paste, no, paste. Just running and I'll even move it. So I don't even do the route. So it landed right by my house. I'll and like a half, a mile from my house so I get done with the mile and I'm telling you a allergy pen, my body was locking up. I'm walking home. I look like the man that was possessed on there probably like what is happening with this guy going home? I'm sneezing. I'm doing everything I have to later. I'm late picking up the kids cuz my body is shutting down. I called I'm going to let the boys know, the Donovan said he motivated me and I told him I was like Donovan every Friday. I have the rent $0.01.

The reason why I haven't ran them up because every time I think about that mile, I look at as torment.

But now, I see how it is transformation.

Go to my cardiovascular. Make me think clearer, build a bone density. There's a bunch of don't let don't let any of these Instagram help people say that running is bad bad influence. You know running is good for the body but when I look at that Mi I look at it as torment. the same thing with food, some of y'all look, Y'all see saladandgo is torment. Download. Shake Shack like that is transformation.

But somebody that is aligned with health and treating their body. They know what actually is going to transform them. Bright. And some of you haven't submitted to Christ because you keep thinking that God is going to torment God, what do you want to take away? What do you want to do? I'm not going to be able to have fun anymore. I'm not going to be able to have sex anymore before marriage. That's going to ruin my comfort. I'm not going to give it a listen to the right music. I'm not going to be able to smoke this weed anymore. I'm not going to be able to hang out with my cool friends are going to hang out with some corny. Christian. I don't have my Sunday mornings anymore. God, why are you here to torment me? What do you want from me? I got back. I'm trying to I'm trying to make. You see me? You to reflect me? I'm trying to make you look like Jesus. I'm here to make you something new. But you've interpreted. My grace as torment and it's actually freedom.

See if Lewis has one of my favorite quotes in the book Mere Christianity, This is this.

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house at first, perhaps you can understand what he's doing is getting the drains, right. Stop the leaks in the roof and so on, and you knew that those jobs needed doing. And so, you were not surprised, but presently. He starts knocking the house about in ways that hurts abominably and does not seem to make it. Didn't make any sense. What, what on Earth is he up to the explanation? Is that he's building a, quite a different house. From the one you thought of throwing out the new filling out a new Wing here, putting an extra for their running up Powers making Courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage. He was building a palace intends to come and live in it himself.

Here to transform you. Todd is building a mansion. Can you so he can live in it? Don't mistake. Don't mistake. His transformation in his grace and mercy as shackles. Got your fly of Satan, all the way back to the garden. If that he got Adam and Eve to believe that God wasn't good and wasn't giving them freedom.

Verse 30. Jesus been asked, what is your name? He said Legion for many demons that interests him and They begged him not to command them to the Department of this. Now, a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and They begged him to let them interview. So, we gave them permission and then the demons came out of the man and entered the Pigs, and The Herd rushed down the Steep Bank, into the lake and drown. What about the pigs? Some of you that maybe have a pig at home. Probably, no, no, not little oink oink, please.

What about the pigs? What it? What was just demonstrating seems random There's a lot of things were like I said, he's in Gentile country so he they know that pigs would have been identifying marker of what people that worship Yahweh and people who didn't. So this is kind of a foreshadowing of his judgment to a gentile Community to stay like this is what happens when you don't send it to me. because, And this is also demonstrating his love and his Justice for the man feel with demon possession. You might ask why? Because if he has two Transformers, he has to deliver us from the evil that holds us captive. You have to deal with the evil that transforming from, what the Lord has delivered us from evil. You have to separate it from the thing that is holding you captive. The shackles have to be broken. So God judges who destroys what torments is people that's the for sharing all through the Old Testament, when some people have a date, they look in the Old Testament, a c, a mean God. And this got that's a loving God. That loves his children. Samson defeating the Philistines from Joshua and the Battle of Jericho from The Exodus from David and Goliath are all foreshadowing that God is going to destroy the evil things that torment his people. It's all right here. Jesus in his love for the man that is possessed with the demon. He's saying like I'm going to break you free and it has no right to enter back into your heart. I have you now and I'm just enough to punch the thing that would try to torment you from day one.

It's one thing. To have power but how you have that Parts. It's awesome to see. Jesus power, just taking the demons out, throw them to the pigs. That's awesome. Sovereign power. But his power and how is demonstrating shows what he love. Like the movie Taken. We mustn't have these abilities, right? But you just didn't use it to go shoot up, everybody. He went to go find the starter. If he ever did because he was demonstrating his love and his Justice and to try to get the person that was dear to him. if you this is where it starts to hit the Christmas strings, because it hits it cuz all of us have a deep desire to feel loved and search for All of us do could you imagine the demoniac? Absence of love in his life. Could you imagine that? It's been years and somebody is giving them a hug. Could you imagine that? Nobody is scared to try to talk to him, to pray for him, to lean on him, to really take care of them. They just wanted to bind him up and to try to get rid of him. So the town can keep blowing as it as it goes and how Society could get keyboard operating. That deep desire to be loved and it's finally met by a man that would take the time to say no more.

Did Jesus cross through a sea storm waves, all of it, travel, 40 miles, and guess what? He leaves. Right after this, though, he came from that one person. he came from that one person, that all of society that ostracized

Jesus doing what he could in that moment with nobody else. Could do loving on that man in a way that nobody else could.

But again, don't forget the mirror. Jesus Christmas. What did Jesus do for each and everyone of us? Crossover from eternity. Taking off the fullness. And the body of his glory, he was still fully God. Putting on human flesh. Because he loves you because he loves you cuz he loves you if he loves you. Went through the torment of being crucified went through the crown of thorns. The the beating the lashes, the ostracization everything that has demoniac had went through Jesus, endured on the cross. And he's like, I'll take your torment that you have and I'll put it on myself so that you can be transformed.

I can't imagine that moment.

I feel finally seen. After years, of not being seen.

Christmas movies are about a lot of times. It's finally being seen and loved when I hadn't been seen and loved. My favorite Christmas song O, Holy Night. What if it's a long lay the world in sin and error pining? Tell he appeared and what the soul felt its worth You feel your worth when Jesus appears. He is the true Soul searcher. Do the soul search ends. Not when when you find God, when you realize he's found you.

the soul search ends not when we find God, but when you realize he's found you The all the soul-searching that you want to do all the things that you're trying to say, I'm in life, how you want to be a better. Father, better mother better worker. You have your new New Year's resolutions. You have all of these things you will never find worth. Until you realize Jesus is the real soulsearcher. He's searching for yours.

Then. Comes the question. At the end. What will you do? You realize he's appeared We see two responses. Let's finish the chapter. 36 to 39.

And those who have seen it, told him how the demon-possessed man have been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the gerasenes, ask him to depart for them. But they received with great fear and he got about return the man from. What's the demons had big that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away saying return to your home. The clear, how good, how much God has done for you and he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city, how much Jesus had done for him.

I would the townspeople push him away.

Write Jesus, just solved the problem. They've been trying to solve for probably years. But yet they're Jesus, go go away. We're afraid of you. Couple of speculations, why they might do that? 1. Jesus is destroy their economy. Put thousands of pigs for lot of bacon. That's a lot of the only bacon, but pigs were also used for worship in their Pagan temples. So, they're probably little upset with Jesus that you've disrupted. What we got going on here.

And it's also a mirror. When somebody becomes transformed to starts to make, you realize the areas in which you need to be transferred like Jesus, you're going to change him. What are you going to change about me? I think somebody lose a little weight in your family, they start losing weight or everybody starts losing weight and starts making a little self-conscious. Somebody starts getting their bills and our money together so I'm making you feel a certain type of way. Because transformation is going to put a mirror up to yourself. And again, then they're faced with the question, do I believe, Jesus is here to torment me or transform, me, and what did they pick? They picked He's here to torment. But they knew he had tired. That's why they didn't push him away. They asked him politely and you, please leave. Cuz I seen his sovereignty. They seen what he did to the pigs. They seen this man fully clothed. They seen this man in his right mind, they see this man being discipled. They seen this man being in his right mind saying. It's like, okay, I'm going to ask him politely because I, but I don't want Jesus near me. I don't want him near me. They have a school. You healed them, but don't come near me. The question is, are you going to push Jesus away? Or will you be like the man that was spilled once filled with demons and pursue him? Cuz the demoniac, what did he ask eBay? Jesus? Can I go with you, please, let me go with you. I've never experienced a love. Like this, please. Let me pursue you, please let me be one of the disciples, a with a row. The boat. I'll do anything. Just let me be beside you.

It had to be near him. Question is, are you going to push Jesus away? Are you going to pursue him?

The one that is searching for your soul, the one that is the only one that can cure any affirmative that you have going on. Are you going to push him away or will you follow him?

question, all of us have to answer And not just in one big moment, but daily. Haley. Am I going to push Jesus away? Am I going to believe the lie of the devil? Or am I going to let him pray for me? Am I going to let him make me a new heart?

Jesus. Then the something unorthodox at the end. Tell Tim to the demoniac to return home. The clear how much God has done for him. He went away for claiming to the whole city that Jesus what Jesus had done for. This flies in the face of people that say Jesus has been God. Clearly says that Jesus said declare what God has done for you and says, Jesus has done for me. One of the same. Jesus, is something very unorthodox. Why did he allow him to follow in? Mind. If I come along, you need more discipling. Let me tell you about the doctor to sanctification. Let me tell you about what I'm going to do on the cross. Let me tell you about how I'm going to come back. Jesus didn't do any of that. Could you spell people? What God has done for you. That's it because what he wanted the demoniac to do is to say Proclaim to everybody else. That I am a God, that pursues, I am a god that is longing for your soul, searching for your soul, and when I find it, I'm going to cure it in. So he just freeze the demoniac to go and go and Proclaim and testify. And make disciples. Did he have all the Christian education in the world? No. Understand. Maybe even had a pray. He's in a gentile Nation. Do you think he's maybe even ever heard of the tour of the law? Any of that? Know, what did he know? There's a man that seen me when I was lost and now I'm found was blind. But yeah. Yeah, I see and I want us in this holiday season to be liberated. Some of us have been in church for years decades. And you think that you're not at the right level to testify about God's goodness. And I want an undercut, that lie. So bad because God is doing a work and you and has done a work in you and you are at Liberty to go out and testify how good God is. Don't just sit back and think that you are Pastor, Will you are Elder my you are Elder. Jimmy that, you don't have these capabilities.

You can testify about what God has done for you. Some of you have been broken free of greed. Some of you have been broken away from line. Some of you have been broken away from broken relationships, year after year. Some of you have been broken away from lust. Some of you have been broken away and how you used to just operate and being power hungry and trying to climb the corporate ladder. God has set you free tell the world. Tell the world. because, who the son sets free is free, indeed, in the Bible says, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Don't keep quiet. Because somebody's out there soul-searching. Waiting to hear and learn about the one. Was already found them. Let us pray.

Father God.

I pray that even at this moment that you are working.

Related Media

Related Sermons

Earn an accredited degree from Redemption Seminary with Logos.