Deliberate Deliverance

Opening Hook:

A high school basketball player couldn't understand why his coach kept him on the bench during close games.

He practiced hard.

He was talented.

He felt overlooked.

After graduation, he asked his coach, "Why didn't you trust me?"

The coach smiled.

"I trusted your talent. I didn't trust your knee."

The player had a small injury that trainers believed could become permanent if overused. The coach had never shared that concern because he didn't want fear to consume him.

Years later, after playing college basketball without injury, the former player said,

"What felt like rejection was actually protection."

Sometimes we're asking, "Why am I sitting?"

When God is answering, "Because I'm preserving you for what's next."

One of the hardest truths of faith is that “understanding often follows obedience, not the other way around.” We naturally want God to explain first and lead second. Yet throughout Scripture, people often discovered the purpose of their trials only after they had walked through them.

Transition:

That is one of the moments we find in today’s text in Mark 5. Let’s turn there to read it.

Set Up: Jesus has just left behind large crowds of people hungry for his healing power, his teachings.

Mark 5:1 ESV

1 They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.

Gentile country, presence of pigs (pork forbidden by Jewish dietary laws) ,

Jesus primarily called and ministered to the Jewish people and culture. Jew and then the Gentile. For the Jewish Messiah to travel here—was deliberate—-like the Samaritan woman at the well. It was out of the norm, and socially unacceptable according to culture.

You may not see it yet, but there was a reason Jesus crossed over the sea…

Mark 5:2–5 ESV

2 And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. 3 He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, 4 for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. 5 Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.

Where does someone pick up an unclean spirit…prevelent and not prevelant. Demons and unclean spirits want to destroy anything associated with God, by any means necessary. Avoid all things dark, not natural, not leading to life, avoid occult practices.

Characteristics of unclean spirit. Characteristics of the man. (scars/clothing/behavior)

People had tried to help him. Even if their efforts were misguided or not helpful. He had a back story. Where did he pick up these spirits? Did he hang out among the graves first? Or after? His behavior seemed to get worse because people had tried to stop him from harming himself and others.

Mark 5:6–13 ESV

6 And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. 7 And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” 8 For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” 9 And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” 10 And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 11 Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, 12 and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” 13 So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

The encounter and conversation.

Conjecture about why Jesus allowed the pigs to be tormented. (Visible Proof for onlookers, Protection for the delivered man)

One thing is for sure, he had to give permission.

Mark 5:14–17 ESV

14 The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country. And people came to see what it was that had happened. 15 And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 16 And those who had seen it described to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs. 17 And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.

Herdsman were upset. Lost pigs = money. Spending time with demon possessed man. Fearful.

People reject Jesus for all kinds of reasons. (Money, Fear)

Mark 5:18–20 ESV

18 As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him. 19 And he did not permit him but said to him, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” 20 And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.

What seems like rejection is purpose.

The Decapolis was a group of ten cities on the eastern frontier of the Sea of Galilee. The region was deeply saturate din Greek Roman culture. A culture that is fascinated with power, might, prestige, and money and wealth. A culture that might need a certain kind of person, with a certain kind of deliverance, that will have the certain kind of impact.

Isn’t that cool.

God crossed waters, into Gentile territory, deliberately delivered someone that was lost to the spirits, and then send him our into the pagan Greek/Roman world to proclaim the good news that God delivers people.

Jesus crosses boundaries to reach one lost person.

What this is not? Justification for sin. You don’t become a drunk to save the drunk.

What this does mean? What it does mean is that you care for the struggling, addicted, and love them the way Jesus loves you. Somethings are barriers that are not sin, that people need to cross in order to do the will of God. Sometimes barriers become excuses for God’s people to not LOVE. and this should not be.

The Snowstorm Neighbor: After a major snowstorm dumped nearly two feet of snow on a small Midwestern town, most people stayed inside. Roads were nearly impassable, power was out in parts of town, and temperatures were dangerously low. An elderly widow lived alone at the end of the street. Her children lived several states away, and no one had seen her since the storm began.

One neighbor, exhausted from spending hours digging out his own driveway, looked down the street and realized that if no one checked on her, she might be stranded without heat, food, or medicine.

He didn't own a snowblower. He grabbed a shovel. For nearly three hours he shoveled through waist-high drifts, one scoop at a time. His gloves became soaked. His back ached. He had to stop repeatedly just to catch his breath. When he finally reached her front porch, he knocked on the door.

She answered with tears in her eyes. “I've been praying someone would come."

He wasn't finished. He brought in firewood, made her lunch, checked her medications, called her children to let them know she was safe, and returned later that evening with extra blankets and supplies.

When someone later thanked him for what he had done, he shrugged and simply said, “ I just couldn't leave her there." He didn't help because it was easy. He didn't help because it was convenient. He helped because love refused to let difficulty become an excuse.

Dismiss Baptism Candidates

Application

That's the kind of love Jesus demonstrates. A love and a plan for people to be delivered in order that they may do the will of God in the ways of God for the purposes of God.

Jesus didn't love us when the path was clear. He loved us when the journey led to a cross. He didn't stop because the cost was high; He continued because His love was greater than the obstacles.

You are a part of that plan too!

And that's the kind of love He calls His followers to have. Real compassion doesn't ask, "How hard will this be?" It asks, "What does this person need?"

Story about something you went through, but not knowing why, until later?

Altar Call:

Some of you remember being the person lost and in need of deliverance.

Some of you are the person in need of deliverance.

Some of you are the person who needs to cross the boundaries.

Some of you are person who needs to start living out your purpose, rather than dwelling on the why.