SPEAKER_00: Please turn your Bibles to the Gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: We're reading chapter 5, verses 1 through 20 this morning, our sermon series.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just point out that today kicks off officially, Vision 2026, and the preaching series is going to continue in the Gospel of Mark.
SPEAKER_00: Along with that, if you were with us last Sunday, we heard the account of how Jesus has authority and power over nature like no one else.
SPEAKER_00: Looked at the raging storm from the boat with his disciples who were so fearful.
SPEAKER_00: And all he had to do was say, peace.
SPEAKER_00: Be still.
SPEAKER_00: And the winds died down immediately.
SPEAKER_00: And the waves stopped.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately.
SPEAKER_00: That's the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Today we see that power and that authority manifested not only over nature but over demons.
SPEAKER_00: Hear the word of God as we read.
SPEAKER_00: He lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain.
SPEAKER_00: For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces.
SPEAKER_00: No one had the strength to subdue him.
SPEAKER_00: Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.
SPEAKER_00: And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him, and crying out with a loud voice, he said, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
SPEAKER_00: I adjure you by God, do not torment me.
SPEAKER_00: For he was saying to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus asked him, What is your name?
SPEAKER_00: He replied, My name is Legion, for we are many.
SPEAKER_00: And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.
SPEAKER_00: Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, Send us to the pigs, let us enter them.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country, and people came to see what it was that had happened.
SPEAKER_00: And they came to Jesus and saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had the legion, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And those who had seen it described it to them what had happened to the demon-possessed man and to the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.
SPEAKER_00: As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed with demons begged him that he might be with him.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And he went away and began to proclaim in the decapitus how much Jesus had done for him, and everyone marveled.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant word.
SPEAKER_00: A word that the Lord has given to us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for your holy word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That you gave that we might become more holy.
SPEAKER_00: So, Spirit of God, have free reign in our minds, our hearts, our emotions, Lord, all that we are.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, there's only you can do.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're talking about breaking free.
SPEAKER_00: What an example we saw.
SPEAKER_00: And we see in this text with this demoniac.
SPEAKER_00: I've been preparing all week thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to meeting this guy.
SPEAKER_00: One day.
SPEAKER_00: What a testimony of God's powerful, sovereign grace.
SPEAKER_00: As we saw last week, Jesus is with us in the boat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know how many conversations I've had this last week a lot.
SPEAKER_00: With a lot of you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for reminding us that Jesus is with us in the midst of the storms and he's in the boat with us.
SPEAKER_00: He's not far from us.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, who had authority over nature as we saw, now exercising the same authority because he's God in the flesh over demons.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing story.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the question that we left last week that the disciples had after Jesus calmed the storm?
SPEAKER_00: Who then is this?
SPEAKER_00: Who then?
SPEAKER_00: The disciples had never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_00: He just speaks and the storm stops immediately?
SPEAKER_00: Who then is this?
SPEAKER_00: This is Mark's portrait.
SPEAKER_00: Remember through the whole sermon series, two fundamental questions.
SPEAKER_00: Who is this one who calls us?
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, what does it mean to follow him?
SPEAKER_00: We see that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to look at the bondage that enslaves, the power that liberates, and the changed life that follows.
SPEAKER_00: So the disciples come to the other side of the sea, once again, in a boat.
SPEAKER_00: They get out, and now they are in Roman territory, Gentile land, the decopolis, these ten cities were the Roman legion used as a starting point, a base camp.
SPEAKER_00: Legion means 6,000 in the Roman army, 6,000 soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: And here, this Gentile country, obviously they're they're pig farmers.
SPEAKER_00: Most Jews wouldn't go anywhere near this area.
SPEAKER_00: They would go around it to escape it.
SPEAKER_00: But they come to the other side of the sea, and when Jesus stepped out of the boat, Mark's word immediately, and this is one of Mark's favorite words, he uses it over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately, he's on to the next story, the next page, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: He used to live in the town, in the city, but the people made sure he lived at a distance because they were scared of him.
SPEAKER_00: They used to put chains on him and he would break, snap the chains and the bonds like they were nothing.
SPEAKER_00: You know why?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't just tell, that wasn't just his human strength.
SPEAKER_00: That was demonic strength.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to go into that today.
SPEAKER_00: Demonic strength is not human strength.
SPEAKER_00: He had that power, and people were scared to death of him.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody was strong enough to subdue him.
SPEAKER_00: So he lives out in this remote place, shrieking wildly, day and night.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew tells us that people avoided this area.
SPEAKER_00: Night and day he would run around among the tombs, shrieking wildly, cutting himself, attempting to destroy himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the work of the demons was doing inside of him.
SPEAKER_00: He was possessed.
SPEAKER_00: This was a man in bondage.
SPEAKER_00: That's clear to see, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to tell us that twice.
SPEAKER_00: This guy's possessed.
SPEAKER_00: This guy is in a whole different place.
SPEAKER_00: The bondage that enslaves, bondage takes many forms.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the bondage is obvious, as we see here.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not so obvious.
SPEAKER_00: People who are clearly out of control, however, whether it's substance abuse or out of control temper.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many different ways that this could be manifested.
SPEAKER_00: One day Jesus was talking with the religious leaders in John chapter 8, and Jesus was trying to make his point to them that they were still enslaved in sin, but it didn't look like it from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: These teachers probably were dressed well.
SPEAKER_00: They were not acting out crazy.
SPEAKER_00: They seemed very much in control, and yet Jesus said, Oh no, no.
SPEAKER_00: You are really way out of control.
SPEAKER_00: You just don't recognize it.
SPEAKER_00: He said in verse 31, if you hold to my teaching, however, if you hear my truth, the truth, the truth will set you free.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what happened to them?
SPEAKER_00: They got really angry with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Are you telling us that we're not free?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, No, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: And they got really angry.
SPEAKER_00: They said, We have never been slaves of anyone.
SPEAKER_00: How can you say that we shall be set free?
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that according to the Bible, all of us have been in slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We were born with our sinful natures into this world.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody here has ever been free from the moment of your birth.
SPEAKER_00: Some people just don't recognize it.
SPEAKER_00: Gerald May, Christian psychologist, says, I'm not being flippant when I say that we all face addictions of some kinds.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies.
SPEAKER_00: They enslave us with chains that are of our own making, and yet paradoxically, they are beyond our control.
SPEAKER_00: Addiction also makes idols of us all, because it forces us to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly loving God with all of our heart and loving one another with all of our heart, the greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_00: We do battle, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: The flesh, the world, and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: The power of those source of evil that can just devastate our lives.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about that.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been thinking about that a lot this week.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh can be such a beast, as though we never heard of the power of Jesus to liberate.
SPEAKER_00: In our walking in the spirit class that we're going to continue tonight, tonight we're focused on addictions.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read just one or two homework assignments, just excerpts.
SPEAKER_00: The end of the struggle by Stanley Vogue is an excellent article.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle for righteousness, Romans chapter 10, verse 4, says Christ means the end of the struggle for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Christ means the end of the struggle for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Well then why do we struggle so much?
SPEAKER_00: Why does that struggle just follow us?
SPEAKER_00: The struggle for attainment, one way we struggle for our own righteousness, is struggling to reach some standard of perfection.
SPEAKER_00: Either some standard that we establish for ourselves or some standard that somebody else sets for us.
SPEAKER_00: It can happen in a variety of ways.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we do set the standard ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We picture in our mind the kind of Christian we think we ought to be, and then chase after that image.
SPEAKER_00: It's like seeing a person saying we ought to be standing on a high mountain.
SPEAKER_00: He urges us to climb up, but we climb and struggle vainly up the slopes.
SPEAKER_00: Seems as though he never offers a helping hand.
SPEAKER_00: Or we may let other people set standards for us.
SPEAKER_00: People are willing forever to tell us what we ought to be.
SPEAKER_00: We hear good sermons and read how to books that show us the kind of Christian we should be, but it only makes us feel guilty sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: People put us on pedestals expecting this and that of us until life can become one long struggle of what others demand.
SPEAKER_00: So we labor on under other people's laws, trying to keep up to their standards.
SPEAKER_00: Stanley asks this question: Are you a Christian living under law?
SPEAKER_00: Do you live under a sense of condemnation because you feel all the time that you ought to be a better Christian, who prays more, does more, gives more?
SPEAKER_00: If so, you are chained to a moral yardstick and living under a yoke and a burden.
SPEAKER_00: All the while Jesus wants to give us rest.
SPEAKER_00: The struggle to earn and keep our reputation.
SPEAKER_00: Another aspect of this struggle for righteousness is the quest is the quest for reputation.
SPEAKER_00: All of us are reputation conscious.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have a reputation.
SPEAKER_00: It may be for holiness, efficiency, leadership, anything.
SPEAKER_00: Others of us wish we had a reputation, but once acquired, it can haunt us, dog us, beat us down, and wear us out.
SPEAKER_00: Bondage to reputation is sheer slavery.
SPEAKER_00: We need to see it for what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Just another form of the struggle for our own righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Like the motto for the state of North Carolina I heard one time.
SPEAKER_00: To be and not to seem.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a great motto?
SPEAKER_00: How often in life do we live to be seen?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I just want to have the appearance of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have the appearance that I have my life together.
SPEAKER_00: I probably don't, but if just if other people think I do.
SPEAKER_00: What's with that?
SPEAKER_00: That's bondage.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to save, set us free from that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, friends, the battle with the flesh is not just out there.
SPEAKER_00: It's in here.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to battle the flesh until the day that we die.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus says, I want you to see why I came.
SPEAKER_00: The things I came to set you free from now, and some will continue in the battles ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Things like anxiety, anger, greed, lust, gossip.
SPEAKER_00: There are so many footholds that the enemy gets in our soul.
SPEAKER_00: Is that not right?
SPEAKER_00: He just gets a hold of us.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you wonder if you're even a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you wonder, have I been set free?
SPEAKER_00: Have I been set free?
SPEAKER_00: Why do I feel like I'm so chained to some of these things?
SPEAKER_00: Remember what the uh teacher said to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: We've never been slaves of any anyone.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you have.
SPEAKER_00: Bondage takes many different forms.
SPEAKER_00: All these sins of the flesh, what we have in common with the demoniac is we it leaves us feeling miserable.
SPEAKER_00: Even if they do vary by degree.
SPEAKER_00: And so before we move on today, I just have the question I've been asking myself this week.
SPEAKER_00: Are you in chains?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you're out of control?
SPEAKER_00: One of the articles, again, for tonight for walking in the spirit is from Scotty Smith.
SPEAKER_00: Are people weary of you?
SPEAKER_00: Are people wary of you?
SPEAKER_00: I have to ask myself that.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk tonight about what are some of the biggest idols around Washington?
SPEAKER_00: Control.
SPEAKER_00: Perfectionism.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us get that, right?
SPEAKER_00: How how tempting it is to just really want to squeeze grip so tightly to try to control other people, that's when they get weary of us or wary of us.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be that guy.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus has to set us free from the gods, these gods.
SPEAKER_00: It's really this the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: How easily and imperceptibly sometimes we can put that God of control, perfectionism.
SPEAKER_00: Anything to manage, help me manage or cope with life.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago, after one of the economic downturns, the business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle was commenting over companies trying to make over their images, particularly in the light of some of the collapses.
SPEAKER_00: He observed that in many organizations, change is like, quote, putting lipstick on a bulldog.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a word picture.
SPEAKER_00: Putting lipstick on a bulldog.
SPEAKER_00: He said he observed that in many organizations there is this tremendous effort involved, but mostly you wind up with some cosmetic appearances in an angry bulldog.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Bulldog doesn't want the lipstick.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, we can wear ourselves out trying to get it, the lipstick on the bulldog.
SPEAKER_00: What's the bulldog in your life?
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like in your life trying to put the lipstick on the bulldog?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that is, Jesus wants to speak to that.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever that is, Jesus wants to show us something better.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, just what he's offering us is so much better.
SPEAKER_00: The great poem by John Don, Batter My Heart, Three Person God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, dearly I love you and would be feigned love, but I am betrothed unto your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Divorce me, untie me, or break that knot again.
SPEAKER_00: Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, shall never be free or chaste unless you ravish me.
SPEAKER_00: Why does that speak so deeply to my heart?
SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I read that, probably 30 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: This guy knows my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, only somebody that really struggled with this could write that.
SPEAKER_00: That beautiful poetry that expresses the deepest desires of our hearts when we know that at times we just feel and live defeated.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he's crying out to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, unless you ravish me.
SPEAKER_00: That's like the strongest images I can think of.
SPEAKER_00: I will never be free or chaste.
SPEAKER_00: I will never be free from the dominant feeling of this oppression in my life unless you imprison me, enthrall me, ravish me.
SPEAKER_00: Which takes us to the second point.
SPEAKER_00: The power that liberates verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: This man sees Jesus from afar and he ran and fell down before him, crying out with a loud voice, What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting that this demon is running toward Jesus, not away from Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You know, demons know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The book of Revelation tells us that at the time of Satan being cast out of heaven, he took a third of his angels with him.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of demons.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of angels.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, there's two things that we need to avoid.
SPEAKER_00: One is to live in fear of demons, Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We're not called to live in fear of demons.
SPEAKER_00: Greater is he who is in you than he was of the world.
SPEAKER_00: But the other thing we need to avoid is dismissing them.
SPEAKER_00: Just being naive.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be naive.
SPEAKER_00: Demonic power is supernatural power used for evil, not good.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not in control of the enemy.
SPEAKER_00: There's a power one day he's gonna bow to and submit to, and he's gonna be cast himself into the lake of fire.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Bible tells us.
SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, he's gonna do all the damage he can do.
SPEAKER_00: We see that here in the story, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: The demons say, how many demons?
SPEAKER_00: Apparently about 2,000 that inhabited the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: They were looking for a host.
SPEAKER_00: Demons do that.
SPEAKER_00: They look for a host.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a human being host.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it could be in animals like this.
SPEAKER_00: And what these demons are saying, they're begging, did you notice there's a lot of begging in this story?
SPEAKER_00: Like at least four times that I count.
SPEAKER_00: And they're begging Jesus, Jesus, don't, if you're going to cast us out, let us go into the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Go into the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: What they were saying is, Jesus, don't cast us into the lake of fire yet.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we're doomed, but not yet.
SPEAKER_00: Let us do some more damage.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Jesus came to face head on.
SPEAKER_00: This is the fight Jesus came for to cast out evil.
SPEAKER_00: What's your name?
SPEAKER_00: My name is Legion.
SPEAKER_00: And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country.
SPEAKER_00: Send us to the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: They rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned.
SPEAKER_00: Notice the response, verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: And the herdsmen of the pigs fled and told it in the city.
SPEAKER_00: They'd never seen anything like this.
SPEAKER_00: They were scared.
SPEAKER_00: This was a huge financial loss.
SPEAKER_00: 2,000 pigs?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know who owned them, but somebody lost a fortune that day.
SPEAKER_00: And they they begged Jesus, Jesus, please leave.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that a curious response?
SPEAKER_00: To someone who had just demonstrated miraculous healing power to say to him, Would you please get out of here?
SPEAKER_00: Why would they possibly say that?
SPEAKER_00: Because they were more concerned about trying to maintain control in their own lives than to submit to control by anybody else.
SPEAKER_00: That's a picture of the enslaving power of sin.
SPEAKER_00: To live with your own stuff.
SPEAKER_00: To live with your own evil, to be more content or willing to live with your own stuff than to submit to the one who can cast out the evil in us.
SPEAKER_00: It was greed.
SPEAKER_00: Greed told them, led them to tell Jesus, please leave.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we can do that in some ways, can't we?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you can come this far into my life, but stop.
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
SPEAKER_00: I will not take the chance of you running my life.
SPEAKER_00: I will not take the risk of being under your control.
SPEAKER_00: I would rather be under the control of the evil in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that sad?
SPEAKER_00: But it's so common.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says something better.
SPEAKER_00: This is real power.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to the teachers of the law that day, and he says to us today, if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been set free?
SPEAKER_00: If the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that you will not have to struggle against the flesh and the world and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying that.
SPEAKER_00: But you will clearly be set free in a way that you were not before you met Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Your life will change.
SPEAKER_00: This is real power.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus alone can calm the wild sea.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus alone can calm this wild man.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus alone can calm whatever is raging inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Would you even be aware of what's raging inside?
SPEAKER_00: Again, tonight we're going to talk about the how exhausting it is to try to submerge a beach ball into the water.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone ever try that?
SPEAKER_00: Good luck.
SPEAKER_00: Big beach ball.
SPEAKER_00: Submerge it under the water?
SPEAKER_00: Not going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Don't care how strong you are.
SPEAKER_00: You're not that strong.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like when we coddle our addictions.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's like when we give in to our addictions.
SPEAKER_00: You just can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: And it leaves you exhausted.
SPEAKER_00: It leaves me exhausted when I try to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the Holy Spirit is here this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: May you hear his voice through his word.
SPEAKER_00: What is it, Lord, that you would call me to relinquish control of in my life?
SPEAKER_00: The town people's response, again, they begin to beg Jesus to depart.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they took a huge financial loss that day, but here's my question.
SPEAKER_00: So what?
SPEAKER_00: What do you really live for?
SPEAKER_00: That this is really what gets exposed.
SPEAKER_00: What we really live for gets exposed when we face the demons in life, when we face the evil in life.
SPEAKER_00: The townspeople would have said, well, no, we know what we're living for.
SPEAKER_00: We're living for greed.
SPEAKER_00: We're living for financial prosperity for us.
SPEAKER_00: The demoniac?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Our motives get exposed in so many different ways.
SPEAKER_00: There are people today who are begging Jesus to leave.
SPEAKER_00: May it be no one in this room.
SPEAKER_00: But there are people who are begging Jesus to leave.
SPEAKER_00: This far, no far, no closer, or just get out of my life completely.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can come to church and beg Jesus to leave, to stop.
SPEAKER_00: Or you can be like the people who beg Jesus to stay.
SPEAKER_00: See, this is what worship is about.
SPEAKER_00: Worship is about by the work of the Holy Spirit to say, Jesus, please come closer.
SPEAKER_00: Please speak.
SPEAKER_00: Cast out the flesh, the evil.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever would be of the devil, would you cast this out?
SPEAKER_00: This is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Like now.
SPEAKER_00: The power that liberates, praise God, Jesus is still liberating people who are under the control of all kinds of evil and addictions.
SPEAKER_00: If you're struggling, I invite you to just make a follow-up appointment with me or one of the pastors.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, the changed life that follows.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region as he was getting into the boat.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was getting into the boat.
SPEAKER_00: The man comes up to him and begs him.
SPEAKER_00: He bows down.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Jesus, please let me go with you.
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful, that's a beautiful request.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, please, can I go with you?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, no, my friend.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to go home.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to tell your family and your friends what I have done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go home.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that means, like this week.
SPEAKER_00: Go home.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go home, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go to your apartment.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go to your house.
SPEAKER_00: And live out this gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Go to work tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the office tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: In your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: In your friendships.
SPEAKER_00: And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decopolis how much Jesus had done for him.
SPEAKER_00: In just a few minutes, we're going to sing a beautiful hymn, one of my favorite hymns written by a man who was liberated, Charles Wesley.
SPEAKER_00: Long my imprisoned spirit lay.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes it is a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Long my imprisoned spirit lay.
SPEAKER_00: Fast bound in sin, thine eye diffused a quickening ray.
SPEAKER_00: I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
SPEAKER_00: My chains fell off, my heart was free.
SPEAKER_00: I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
SPEAKER_00: You know the name of that hymn, right?
SPEAKER_00: What's the name of that hymn?
SPEAKER_00: And can it be?
SPEAKER_00: That's a great title for that hymn.
SPEAKER_00: Is it possible?
SPEAKER_00: Is that possible in my life, in your life, that I could be liberated by that kind of gospel power?
SPEAKER_00: By that the same one that calmed the sea?
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says the answer to that is yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_00: It can be.
SPEAKER_00: About the life of a woman named Mary Kay Beard.
SPEAKER_00: Born and raised in Alabama.
SPEAKER_00: Very difficult homes.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of addictions in her family.
SPEAKER_00: Grew up an angry woman.
SPEAKER_00: And she met, I think it was her second husband, who was a wheeler, dealer, swindler, thief.
SPEAKER_00: He taught her the tricks of the trade.
SPEAKER_00: She became pretty good at opening up safes illegally.
SPEAKER_00: She was known as the Bonnie Parker, the Bonnie and Clyde of Alabama.
SPEAKER_00: Once robbed$380,000 in one heist.
SPEAKER_00: She ended up going to the state penitentiary in Alabama.
SPEAKER_00: And while she was there, there was a Gideon Bible in her cell.
SPEAKER_00: She started reading through the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Got to, she she made it, she made it through to Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: Good for you, Mary Kay.
SPEAKER_00: She kept reading.
SPEAKER_00: And she came across Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.
SPEAKER_00: I will remove your heart of stone and I will put in you a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You will follow my decrees and my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: She was saved.
SPEAKER_00: She was liberated by the power of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: She went on to join the prison ministry, prison fellowship with Chuck Colson.
SPEAKER_00: She's the lady that came up with the idea of angel tree.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have heard of that ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Years later, she was with the warden that was the warden in her time in prison.
SPEAKER_00: He showed her a series of mugshots.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a lineup of incarcerated women in that prison.
SPEAKER_00: He shows her this lineup of all these mugshots.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do you recognize any of these people?
SPEAKER_00: She takes a look and says, No.
SPEAKER_00: Are you sure?
SPEAKER_00: Take another look.
SPEAKER_00: Is there anybody that looks familiar to you?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: No, seriously.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to just really linger on these pictures, these mugshots.
SPEAKER_00: She sees herself.
SPEAKER_00: That's me.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't recognize herself.
SPEAKER_00: She had changed so much.
SPEAKER_00: You know when Jesus gets a hold of you, even the outside changes.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't look so angry, do we?
SPEAKER_00: We don't look so anxious.
SPEAKER_00: We don't look so self-focused and preoccupied with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus gets a hold of you, you look different.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you did.
SPEAKER_00: That's you, Mary Kay.
SPEAKER_00: Before.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's time to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord Jesus, who liberates like you do?
SPEAKER_00: Who frees the addicted, the bound, the chained?
SPEAKER_00: Only you.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us here this morning, we want to testify how you've liberated us.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to say thank you again.
SPEAKER_00: We want to say, may your liberating power continue to work in us.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, give us the grace, give us the strength, give us that gospel power day by day to fight the flesh, the world, and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that any that are among us that have not yet been liberated.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord Jesus, even this morning, would you set them free?
SPEAKER_00: As only you can set us free that we would be free indeed by the blood of Jesus, by the power of your word, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.