Jesus doesn't care (Luke 8:1-3)

What happens when we truly pursue Jesus, allow Him to break down the barriers that keep us from Him, and intentionally bring others along on the journey?

In Luke 8:1–3, we see Jesus traveling from town to town proclaiming the Kingdom of God—and He didn’t do it alone. The Twelve were with Him, along with women from remarkably different backgrounds and stories. Their lives remind us that Jesus breaks barriers of gender, brokenness, social status, and our past. He doesn’t define us by where we’ve been; He invites us into the freedom of who we can become through Him.

This message challenges us to pursue the truth of the Gospel with the same passion Luke had for knowing Jesus, to stop allowing fear, doubt, or our past to keep us from Him, and to recognize that following Jesus was never meant to be a private journey.

Are you pursuing Jesus? What barrier is keeping you from a life of freedom and surrender? And who are you bringing with you?

Our goal isn’t simply to get ourselves to Heaven—it’s to take as many people with us as we can. Let’s empty hell and make Heaven crowded.

Listen now and discover what it means to pursue Jesus, break through barriers, and bring others along.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

We all give it up for our speaker this morning. Where is there? He is Skyter. Good morning. Good morning. Pastor Todd and Pastor Crystal are away today, so I get the honor and the privilege. Right? Like you think for real, you think you could work for the FBI or like you could get a Netflix documentary. You seen all those reels going around, like people sitting in the chair and they mic up and they like the caption is like waiting for my Netflix, you know. Like that's us. Okay. We think we could do that because we are really good at figuring things out. Maybe, maybe you saw something. Maybe you're scrolling and you saw something that that captivated you, and you were like, Well, I gotta get to the bottom of this. And so you did. Or maybe somebody told you something about somebody or about something, and then you just took off to the races with it, Googling stalking Facebook profiles. Come on. I know you do it. I do it. Stalking Facebook profiles going to friends of people that you don't even know, but you saw they posted something on theirs, so maybe they know something that you don't. And so you're going through all this stuff and trying not to like accidentally like somebody's pictures, they don't know you're creeping, right? Right? Come on. I know I'm not alone. We do this, right? We do this, and we're good at it, okay? We're really good at it. We can find any story we want, and we can find the answers we're looking for. Okay. So as I was preparing this sermon, we're in the book of Luke still. I really wanted to understand Luke. Like the person, Luke, not just the book of Luke. I wanted to understand who he was. And so I had to stalk Luke to find out how he stalked Jesus. Because Luke was not an apostle. Okay, so what is the significance in the New Testament that he wrote two books? Why did he write the scripture we were about to read? Why are these specific details omitted into history forever? That is the question for myself that I wanted to answer. Why? Why does this scripture matter? So the title of my message today is Jesus Doesn't Care. And I know you're thinking, well, that's quite opposite of everything I've been told. Okay? Just hang in there with me, and I'm going to tell you why, okay? But if you will, if you're taking notes, go to Luke chapter 8, verses 1 through 3, where it says, Soon afterward, Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the good news about the kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from who he had cast out seven demons, Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's business manager, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples. Okay, so I read that and I was like, okay, what does this mean? Why, why did it seem necessary to say that they were doing this and that these specific people were there and this is what they were doing? Because to me, the story of the gospel still made sense even without this scripture, right? Jesus still came, Jesus still died, was resurrected, all that still made sense to me without this scripture. So why did Luke put this in there? Because Luke, point number one that I want to make, is the pursuit of the knowledge of Jesus. Luke was an intelligent man and the facts mattered to him. He was giving information to give to Theophilus, who was somebody who had been told of Christianity before, but he needed to know more about it. And so this is the reason for Luke writing this book. He was trying to give somebody the gospel. But Luke did not get to walk with Jesus himself, as the twelve did. And he wanted to get the story right. So he sought the truth from eyewitness accounts. Meaning the disciples that he got to talk to and other people along the way that got to see and meet and know Jesus personally, he sought those people out to get their stories and make sure he got the facts right so that he could give it to other people to know the truth. And so my question for us today, as I was reading this, is what if we pursued and craved the truth of the gospel just as Luke did? Because there's no telling to what ends Luke had to go to to find the truth, to find out who Jesus is, to find out what Jesus did, and he wanted to really know and understand Jesus. If we're being honest, like my illustration earlier about how we're so good at finding out the stories of things, we are very quick to jump on a hot story, but we're very slow to the greatest story ever told. For example, our phone buzzes, we drop what we're doing, like I'm not even at church. Somebody just texted me, ooh. We drop what we're doing, we click, we watch, share, comment, react with the little thumbs up or the heart, whichever one you like to do. And within minutes, everybody knows. Everybody knows what's going on. However, God rescues, Jesus dies, He rises, He saves. It's the most life-changing news in history, but we rarely share it. We hesitate, we wait, maybe we worry what people think, or we're worried that we won't have the right answer. If you ask me, I I didn't do any research on this, but I think those are the two biggest reasons that we're too afraid in some situations to share the gospel because we're worried what they're gonna think, maybe people at work, at school, whatever it is, or we're afraid that we're not gonna have the answer to something that they're gonna ask. And let me tell you, it says in the Bible that we will overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the power of our testimony. And if you've got a testimony, which you do, then you've got something good to tell. Okay? And they might have answers, excuse me, they might have questions, and you might not have the answer, but that's okay. You can say, you know what? I'm not sure about that. Let me let me get back to you. That's okay. I do it all the time about various things. But you've got the good news. You've got a testimony. Jesus has done something in your life that people need to know about. We had an altercation at work. I won't share the details, um, but we had an altercation at work. Uh some just two guys got a little worked up about something uh at Shift Change, and you know, within I don't know, a couple hours, um almost everybody that works there knew about it, and they weren't even there. However, we rarely at work specifically share you know good things, or you know, somebody got a promotion or whatever it was, some success story, that takes a little bit longer to spread, but when something something like that really grabs our attention, we're really quick to share that. But what would change if we really pursued Jesus? Would we shy away for fear of not knowing the answers, or would we be excited to share all that we know? So, point number two, okay, and this is where I'm gonna tell you why Jesus doesn't care. I know you're excited to know. Okay, I'm gonna tell you. Point number two, and these are the the next two points of the two things that I got from my investigation and stalking of Luke to figure out why these specific scriptures, okay, these are the two things that I feel like, and there's probably many more, but these are two that stuck out to me why Luke put this in the Bible. Point number two is that Jesus broke barriers. First barrier that he broke here is the gender barrier. Women were rarely, if ever, viewed as disciples or understudies of a rabbi. Yet Jesus brought them along and taught them the same as the men. Number two is the barrier of brokenness. Mary Magdalene had seven demons cast out of her. Jesus could have decided there was something wrong with her. Say, there's this chick is crazy. I don't know what's going on. How in the world did seven demons get inside this woman? What in the heck? I'll set you free and then go on somewhere else. But no, he didn't do that. He cast out the demons and said, Listen to me, Mary, your past does not define your future. You were broken, you were possessed. We just sang it. The enemy thought he had me. But Jesus what? Jesus said, You are mine. Jesus didn't care. He doesn't care, but still about whatever barriers you have. He took Mary with him. And she became one of his most faithful followers and one of the first witnesses to his resurrection. Next, he broke the barrier of social status. Mary Magdalene served alongside Jesus with Joanna, the wife of Chusa. I think I'm saying that right. I don't know if it's Cusa or Coza or Chusa or Chuza, but I'm gonna say Chusa. Um, but Jesus doesn't care, right? Uh but she likely came from a life of wealth and influence, much, much different than where Mary had just come from. She was probably, Joanna was probably some highborn into a wealthy family and maybe had a good education or you know, whatever. She came from somewhere that was good and probably had a lot of influence. But influential or ordinary, Jesus doesn't care. You can cut you can come from the slums, or you can come from as high as you can get. But right here at the altar or at the foot of the cross, we're all the same. Okay? And Jesus knows that. And he understands that. One more barrier that Jesus broke, if we look, um, and I didn't put this in my notes, but one more barrier that Jesus broke, if we look a little bit farther into the story, a little bit farther into Luke, when Jesus was crucified, he broke the barrier between man and God. The veil was torn, and now we have access. Jesus bridged the gap between man and God. So we can come to God with anything. Whenever we want. There doesn't have to be this ritual or you know, tie a rope around you so they can pull you out type deal anymore. We can just go to God freely because of the price that Jesus paid, because of the barriers that he broke. A couple, well, probably about a month ago, we went to see the uh Dude Perfect tour. Does everybody know who Dude Perfect is? Yeah, some people do. If you don't know, uh they were they got together in college. I think they went to AM. They're local, they're local Texas boys. Um they got together in college and made up, um they really liked sports, and they made a whole YouTube channel around doing goofy stuff with sports. It started out just as trick shots, you know. If like if I had a a cup over there just bouncing a ping pong ball into the cup, like just crazy stuff like that. Um is uh go-kart soccer. It's super cool, it looks super fun. Um, but anyways, uh they they finally got got big enough to where they um uh are having they did a tour around the United States um so you could actually come and and see them compete against other people. Um so it was the Dude Perfect Guys against this other team that they assembled. Um but anyways, we got tickets to go see them, and we get there at uh the American Airlines Center, and we walk in. I think the where you walk in, the floor is in the 100s, the next one is 200s, and the next one was three hundreds. So we get there, and uh it was Griffin's cousin Owen's birthday. So his uh his mom was gonna stand in line at the merch table, which was where we walked in, and I was gonna take the boys to go up to our seats. And our seats are all the way up in the 300s. So I go and ask some lady, because I hadn't been there a long time, I couldn't remember how to get there. Ask this lady, hey, do you know how I get all the way up to the 300s? And she said, Yeah, there's some stairs right there. You gotta walk. Cool, sweet, love that for us. So we began walking up the stairs, and each time we turned another one, the boys were like, There would be a door, and they were like, Oh, I think this is ours, and I'm like, No, no, it's not. We gotta keep going. So, anyways, we wind all the way up the stairs, and there's finally one last door. I'm like, this is the bar, this is ours, and they're not as excited by the time we get to that one. Uh but anyways, we get there and we get to our seats, and we're in section 325. So I'm looking, looking, and it's it's still up. We come in the door where you enter, and it's still up. We were so high up, I'm pretty sure Jesus was sitting right behind me. Okay. We were I'm pretty sure he was right there. We were at the top. Um, so me and the boys got there, and the show was about to start, which is why I went ahead and took them so we could get to our seats before they started. Um, so we call our Aunt Nikki was down there. Owen's mom was down there getting some merch. We get to our seats, and while we're sitting there watching the opening ceremony they do, she's riding somehow. She found an escalator. I don't know. I guess they just didn't like they didn't like us. I don't know. She found an escalator. So she's riding up the escalator, and there's I guess a staff member of the um of the stadium, or maybe of the Dude Perfect people, I'm not sure who it was. Um, but there's a staff member riding in front of her, and the staff member turns around to Aunt Nikki and asks, Are you here with your kids? She said, Yeah, we are. She asked, Well, where are you sitting? Oh, we're sitting up here in the in the 300 section. Would you all want better tickets? Yeah, yeah, we do. That'd be great. And so she gave us tickets to section 118. Almost, almost on the floor. We got down there, and I mean the boys were rubbing shoulders with some of the guys from Dude Perfect. They lost their minds. Okay? It was awesome. But the point of this is that we didn't pay for those tickets. We didn't earn those tickets, and while there was no physical barrier, you know, stopping us from going to those seats, anyways, had we had taken them, she probably would have given those tickets to somebody else, and those people would have come and said, Hey, you're in our seats, you gotta move, and we'd had to go go all the way back up, and we didn't want to do that. But the point is that there was a barrier there for us, a financial barrier, if you will. But it was broken because somebody decided to have a little bit of grace on us, because somebody saw us and said, You know what? You're worthy. You're worthy of this. And that's what Jesus does for us. That's what Jesus did for these people when he broke these barriers. He said, It doesn't matter. I don't care. I want you all to come. And the truth of this is that gospel brings the gospel, excuse me, brings people together who would never normally belong together. There are some of you here this morning that I would have never met if it weren't for this. If it weren't for this church, I probably never would have met you. Whether that be because our interests don't align or we're separated by county lines, or whatever it is, there are a lot of you here that I would have never met. But God brought us all together here for a singular purpose of receiving salvation and advancing the kingdom. Okay. Jesus doesn't care how you got here. Just like it didn't matter how we got to the stadium, it just mattered that we showed up to the stadium that there was no prew prerequisite for us getting those tickets other than showing up. Jesus doesn't care that you how you got here, just that you came just come and see what he can do. Come and see how he can upgrade your life the same way that we got to upgrade our seats. The only thing you have to do is come. It doesn't matter what you did before this, it doesn't matter how you got here, doesn't matter what you're thinking about doing after this. All that matters is that you're here right now. So don't let your brokenness, your past, your marginalization, your social class, your doubt or fear keep you from coming to know a Savior who wants you to bring all of that to him and receive his love. And the freedom that comes with that and his grace. And you're here. And he's ready to give it to you. Point number three, and the second thing that I observed through this text is that Jesus brought people with him. One thing we can observe through Jesus' ministry is that the only times he ever went to be alone was to pray to his father. Other than that, he was always surrounded by people. Because Jesus understood the eternal implications of his assignment. And let me tell you, I don't think Jesus' life or Jesus coming here was a punishment for Jesus because of us. It was an assignment to come and save us. Okay? And he understood. That he intentionally brought people with him as he went from town to town proclaiming the good news. And if we are following Jesus, we should be bringing others along with us. Luke tells us that Jesus traveled from one town and village to another preaching the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women. You see, Jesus wasn't building a solo ministry. He was investing in people while reaching more people. And following Jesus was never meant to be a private journey. We are called to invite others into a relationship with Christ and into the community of believers. So I'll take this moment to shamelessly plug our hope groups. Okay? We have lots of groups about to kick off with lots of leaders that would love to invest in you. Okay, because we're not meant to do this alone. Jesus exemplified it. He showed us the way, and the way is with each other. You can try to do it alone. Trust me, I've tried. It's rough when you don't have somebody. You're not meant to do this alone. If you're here today and you're trying to do it alone to find somebody, whether you want to join a hope group or not, there's somebody here that would like to love on you and invest in you. Okay? You don't have to do this alone. Think about a road trip. Okay? It's more fun when someone comes with you. You get to share conversations, make memories, and help each other out. For example, our road trips usually look like I'm driving, Hannah's in the passenger seat, Griffin and Nora in their back, screaming for snacks. I gotta use the bathroom. Are we there yet? Can we go to McDonald's? All this stuff. Anyone else? Is that y'all's road trip too or just mine? Okay. Yeah, okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Glad I'm not alone. Yeah, that's our normal road trip. And then Hannah gets to take a break from that to look at me and tell me how crazy I'm driving. It's so fun. It's so fun. And then I get to explain to her how I'm driving perfectly fine. All these other people just need to go back to class and learn how to do it and get out of my way so I can get where I'm going, okay? If the speed limit says 60, listen, if it says 60, you can go 65. Okay. It's gonna be okay. That's right. It's a suggestion, okay? Trust me, I've tested this multiple times. They're not gonna pull you over if you're doing five over, okay? Maybe in godly, I don't know. I don't I don't go through godly. Now that's not that's not in the Bible, okay? So don't go looking for that. That's just that's Skylar 1-1. You can go a little bit faster, okay? You can go a little bit faster. It's gonna be okay. We don't have to creep and crawl the whole way there. Um, but, anyways, road trips are fun, I love them. Love them. But it's always more fun with people, whether it be with Hannah and the kids or friends or whatever it is, it's always more fun with people. And the Christian life is the same way. Because Jesus didn't simply tell people where to go, he invited them to walk with him. Because it's more fun to do it with somebody. We're better together. I think that's a saying. We are better together. Listen to me, if you hear nothing else out of anything I've just said, this this last part is the stuff that I want you to hear, okay? We can't wait for people to accidentally find Jesus. We have to invite them. You have to walk with them, encourage them. Something that I tell the youth all the time is that at the end of all this, there's only two ways it's gonna go. We're gonna stand before God and He's gonna say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. Or he's gonna say, Away from me, I never knew you. And not that we should live this life out of fear of going to hell because that's not what it's about. But it should scare us a little bit that there are people we know that don't know Jesus, and up to this point we've been okay with that. We can't wait for them to accidentally stumble upon Jesus. This is the greatest story in history, like we talked about in the beginning. The greatest story ever told. And there's people waiting on us to go tell it to them. People need us to go tell it to them. Because I would hate to get to the end of this and stand before God and Him say to me, Well done, my good and faithful servant, and then turn around and see somebody I know going the other way. Because I didn't take a minute to share the gospel with them. I've heard it said like this before. I can't remember where or or who said it, but how much do you have to hate someone to not tell them about Jesus? Come on. The things we do today matter. It has an eternal implication. Every choice we make, whether in here or out there, one day we're gonna stand before God and it's gonna make a difference what you did. Today, tomorrow, yesterday, it's gonna matter. And we have to get it right. Just as Luke sought the truth to get it right to give to other people, we gotta get it right because there's people depending on us. There's people that depend on us to get it right. And let me tell you also that accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior is not the finish line, okay? It's just the starting point. When you finally accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, it doesn't end there. It's not, alright, I'm going to heaven. Thank God, now I'm just gonna go do whatever I want. No, that's not the point. That's a point, but it's not the point. The point is that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We know the gospel, we know what Jesus has done for us, we know our spot in heaven is secured. Now our goal should be to go and empty hell and take as many people with us as we can. Just as Jesus did. Everywhere he went, he preached the good news and he brought people with him. He didn't leave anyone where they were. Everywhere he went, somebody was changed because of Jesus. Wouldn't that be cool if that was true of you? True of me, that everywhere I went, somebody left change, somebody left transformed because of the good news of the gospel. Come on. So we have to ask ourselves who am I bringing to church? Who am I inviting into my life so that they can see Jesus through me? And who am I praying for and intentionally pursuing? So as I close, if you are here today and feel there is a barrier between you and God, remember that Jesus broke barriers. He is ready to have a personal relationship with you and set you free so that you can receive everlasting life with him and bring as many people with you as you can. So, what are our transformational moments this morning? Number one, to put it simply, are you pursuing Jesus? Is it something you think about every day when you wake up that you got just gotta know something else? You gotta know the truth. When we look at the scriptures, do we just read it and move on to the next one, or do we wonder, why did Jesus think that I need to know this? Are we pursuing Jesus and what he's trying to speak to us? Number two, what barrier today is preventing you from a life of freedom and surrender to Jesus? I know you've walked in here with something. I've done it plenty of Sunday mornings. Walked in here with something that I needed to let go of, something that was a wedge between me and Jesus. Something that was driving me the other way, making it hard to come to the foot of the cross. A barrier that I had to figure out how to break. I know there's probably somebody in here with a barrier separating you from Jesus today. What is that barrier? Name it. And then come and let it down. Let it go. Jesus wants to break that barrier for you. He wants to give you freedom from whatever it is. But you gotta bring it. Number three, are you ready to empty hell and make heaven crowded? Come on. Are you ready to go and make a difference in this world? Because we can do a lot in here, okay? It's easy to do this stuff in here because this is why we came. It's easy for me to talk about this in here because you came to hear it. It's different when we leave here. But that can't matter. We have to be bold. You have to be ready. You gotta know the truth. You gotta pursue Jesus. You gotta let Jesus break your barriers so we can go out there and empty hell and make heaven crowded. Are you ready to do that? So this morning, we've talked a lot about salvation. If you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, maybe you haven't related to some of what I'm talking about because you haven't done that yet. Maybe you don't have that personal relationship. I want to give you that moment. So I'm gonna say a prayer and you can just repeat after me quietly, loudly, however you want to do it, in your head. It's up to you, but I'm just gonna say a quick prayer. Just if everybody will bow your heads and close your eyes. I know that I'm a sinner. I know that I need your love in my life. Would you come and forgive me for what I failed you? Take my life and use it for your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.