Mark 5 • The Realms of the King
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Sermon Notes
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Look in your Bibles at Mark chapter 5. Mark chapter 5. At this point, Jesus' ministry is in full throttle as he's moving more and more public and he goes from mountain, the servant on the mount, to sea, stilling the storm, to a cemetery.
Now that may be a strange place to conduct a public ministry, but you'll see why. Just after he lands on the shore from stilling the storm, there's another storm brewing,
but it's in the heart and mind of a man.
Mark 5 verse 3, "That man lived among the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain.
For he'd 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.
Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains, he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones.
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? I urge you or you, beg you by God, do not torment me.
For he was saying to him, "That is Jesus, come out of the man, you unclean spirit."
And Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"
He replied, "My name is Legion, for we are many."
And he, that is Legion, begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. 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."
So he gave them permission.
And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs, and the herd numbering about 2,000
rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.
The herdsmen fled and told it in the city and in the country, and people came to see what it was that had happened.
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.
Why afraid?
Jesus came to enable us to serve him without fear. Why afraid at this great evidence of the power of God?
It seems ancient, it seems not dealing with modern realities, but deep down we know something about the physical and spiritual realities of our world. They are mixed in ways more profound than we can just make sense with our math and our test tubes.
Think of a much more modern experience. Marie McCready was just 13 years old when she had a bronchitis attack, and as a consequence,
lost her speech.
But when the bronchitis left, she could not speak.
For a while it was kind of fun.
I mean, she went back to school but couldn't speak, and so she and her friends developed other ways of communicating sign language and passing notes in the classroom, which brought the suspicion of the teachers.
You're faking it.
No.
Then because it was a parochial school, something evil is possessing you.
You are a witch.
No.
One of the pastors with the school actually said, "This is the work of the devil."
She herself even began, "Maybe it was. Is that what was happening?"
And as the anxiety filled her, they ultimately put her in an insane asylum under the designation of hysteria, so much anxiety she cannot even speak anymore.
They couldn't cure it, and so ultimately when they determined she was not crazy, she took up a job that fit somebody who could not speak. She became a typist.
Until age 25, another bout of bronchitis, and as she began coughing up blood in terror, went to the doctor and there was a lump in her throat, and when they extracted it, they found that it was a penny that she had swallowed 12 years previous, wedged between her vocal cords so they could not resonate. How it got there, no one knew. Was it a friend that put a coin in a cup as a prank? Was there a soda can that somehow got a penny? They don't know.
All we know is that 12 years later, after a physical reality had led to a spiritual concern, had led to just such a confusion of thought, that the reality of the physical world and spiritual concerns began to conflate in such a way that any reasonable person would be saying, "How do these worlds fit together?"
The physical and the spiritual and the impact on what we think about relationships eternally.
And believe it or not, that is exactly what Jesus is addressing in this passage that seems so strange to us. As Jesus, who has just said to the wind and the waves and the men in the boat, "Peace be still," is making it clear he is not just in charge of the created order, but of matters physical for individuals and spiritual so that the relationships that ultimately become eternal are all the realms in which Jesus is saying, "I'm in control of that too." The famous statement of Abraham Kuyper, "There is not one square inch of this earth over which Jesus does not stand and say, "This is mine. This is mine." And that is not just physical. That is spiritual. It's ultimately eternal as Christ is demonstrating who He is, this preacher on the Mount. He is the King of all realms. And He begins just in that spiritual world that we have so many questions about. Picture the scene. Jesus has crossed the Sea of Galilee. He is still the storm. And when He's doing it, remember those disciples wake up and say, "Teacher, don't you care about us?"
Well He does care.
And He rises and He rebukes the wind and the waves and says, "Peace be still."
And they were terrified.
What manner of man is this? That even the wind and the waves obey Him. And He is about to say what manner of man He is. He gets right out of that boat on the far shore, steps out, and a man from the tombs comes to Him. He's insane. But it's not just insanity. Whatever fills Him spiritually gives Him superhuman strength along with the insanity. He can't be bound by many men or chains or shackles. He can break them all because the spiritual evil that is in Him, the demons that are in Him, two thousand go into the pigs, are so controlling Him that He can't do anything but rage in body and mind in the cemeteries.
It's real.
I mean, I know it's the Halloween time of year, so we think if you were singing on a movie, you know, Boris Karloff is right around the scene somewhere.
But it's at Price or somebody named Bruin Hilda must be.
But it's not Halloween silliness.
It's right where we live. He is so out of control that just to be able to control something, He inflicts pain on Himself.
It's the cutting we still understand in our culture. I'm totally out of control. Nobody cares about me. I have no control around. Well, at least I can control pain. I can control something and feel something when the world has rejected me.
And so He begins to self-harm Himself.
And when He approaches Jesus, the demons in Him speak for Him. Verse 7, "What have you to do with me, Jesus? Son of the Most High God, I beg you by God, do not torment me." Amazing that even a legion of demons, this composite called legion, is speaking to Jesus in the name of God.
I mean, it's heavy awareness for us when we have friends or relatives who say leaving a very different dishonoring to God life and they say, "Don't worry about me.
I believe in God."
What did James the brother of Jesus say?
You say you believe in God and you do well, but even the devils believe.
You believe in a God? Believe me, Satan believes in a God.
What is your belief that you are in desperate need of a Savior and that Jesus, by His death and resurrection, paid the price for your sin and in gratitude, you are living for Him now. Even Him, His ways, His provision, that's what I believe about the God who provided a Savior for me. That's my faith.
And in the remarkable things that happen next, you understand that mere faith is not enough because this composite of Satan, this legion is thrown into pigs.
And some of you have been with me in the Holy Land probably where this is, right beside the Sermon on the Mount, a little further on the Sea of Galilee, there is this sloping pasture that goes down to a cliff over the Sea of Galilee. And the speculation is it could have happened there just as the Scriptures say, the physical dynamics fit the count.
Okay.
But what's your takeaway from such a strange story?
One is simply, you know, I'm a modern, I'm, you know, I'm scientific, I'm, you know, astute in the ways of the world, no such thing. I mean, demons inside of me, I mean, come on, we live in a modern world. We have test tubes and mathematical formulas and computers.
But something deep in us knows that just what our eyes can observe and what the test tubes can test is not the full reality.
There is a spiritual world. Daniel was telling us so many years prior to this that there is this parallel universe that what is happening in the spiritual world is waging war between God and His servants and Satan and His. And what they are doing is wrestling for our souls and we are being fought for in the heavenly realms. And the vessel says the apostle Paul, "Against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and spiritual wickedness in high places."
And that reality is to be faced. Now that brings up all kinds of questions. Well, if that's true, if there really are demons and evil forces, can a Christian be demon-possessed?
Now, I'll just tell you, I don't think so.
Now can we be deceived by Satan? Can we be confused in our thinking in ways? Well, of course.
But remember what the Scriptures say, Galatians 2.20, "I'm crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives," where?
"In me and the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." So says John, "Greater is He that's in you than he that is in the world, and Jesus is not indwelling you." And then some more say, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, Satan wants in? Okay, well, I'll just move aside so Satan can—no! He is king. He is the ruler of our eternal destimies. He has loved us from time immemorial and He claims us for all eternity. And we recognize, can we be deranged in our thought? Can we be deceived by Satan? But He is not in control. This is my Father's world. This is the soul that belongs to Jesus Christ, and I believe Him. My faith is in His provision." Can other people be demon-filled?
Jesus answers that. Luke 11, "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through voids, seeking rest, and finding it." And it says, "I'll return to the house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order.
Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself. And they enter and dwell there. So the last state of the person is worse than the former."
We can live in a world where people say, "You know what? I don't need God. I don't need Jesus, but my world still makes sense. I'll just get things ordered in a way that makes sense to me, and I just kind of get all the taboos and all the superstitions swept out, and I'll get my life all ordered by the way that I can think about it, and things will just be fine." And you think of the mass shootings of our era.
Not every one of them, the means of the psychologist, are people who are insane, that often young men who just have their minds all in order as they think of it, feeding hatred and bitterness on the internet and then responding to the bullying that they have experienced. It makes perfect sense to them. "I'm just going to go kill a bunch of people. Won't that be a good thing? Won't they respect me then?" And you kind of think, "What sort of deranged thinking is that?" And you recognize that even as they think they have swept out all wrong thought, what is coming is more evil than was ever there before. Just as Jesus has said. "Be with me. Unbelievers can make room for Satan."
Now the fact that Christians are not possessed by the devil does not mean that we don't have things to think about. When we talk about the reality of a spiritual world as Christians, you recognize that you can kind of fall off both sides of a cliff.
One cliff says, "Oh, you know, there just aren't such things." You know, that's just ancient people and ancient perspectives. I just don't believe in these devil things. That's one mistake.
But the other mistake, more common in the church, is to believe that there's a devil behind every bush that we have to be afraid of. And so we live in fear that God never meant us to have. What did Jesus say when He stilled the storm? He said, "Peace.
Be still."
And when this man is healed, he's sitting down.
He's at rest. He is calmed. God has done something in heart and mind and life, and He's at peace.
What did the apostle Paul say? God did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. We serve a God who even is an activity who was saying to us, "I came to enable you to serve me without fear.
Where is He that's in you than He that is in the world?" And everything that Paul is saying as he's recounting the truths of Jesus are being reflected in this passage. Power, love, sound mind are yours. Verse 14, "The herdsman of the pig fled and told it in the city and the country, and the people came to see what had happened." Verse 15, "They came to Jesus, and they saw the demon-possessed man, the one who had had the legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind."
The power of God has brought peace rest into his life where there was a man cutting himself and screaming at night. No, he's at rest now. There is peace. And more than that, I love it, he is clothed.
There's dignity again.
There's awfulness, but now there's dignity again, clothed in the provision of Jesus.
Spiritually we're reminded over and over again that we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I'm in Him. I'm united to Christ. He surrounds me. It's His identity that is mine now. And so we go through awful things in life. I think of those who have experienced the awful pain of divorce, and they know that in the church there are those who will blame them and there are those who will gossip about them.
And we get to say, "But you are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Your identity is in Him. The past does not define you. The reality of your spiritual union with Christ is what calls you His precious child. You are as loved by God as Jesus Himself."
And we raise children that disappoint us, and we know people will point their finger and talk about our failures. And I say, "I am clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. My identity before Him is the one of a perfectly loved child. People may accuse my parenting, and of course everything they say is true to some extent.
I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
I'm embarrassed that I've been dismissed from my job. I've been rejected by loved ones. Maybe there's mental illness in my family. Maybe there's mental illness in me. Maybe there's the loss of my former capacities of mind or body. Maybe I'm facing depression in cycles I don't know how to get out of. And everybody is blaming me." And I say, "But you are robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. You are clothed in the dignity of the God who has saved you. And that is the blessing of our salvation. And it's not just that we are clothed. We've got new paths.
He who has been acting insane has a sound mind. He's sitting there in such a way that Jesus says to the man who has been insane and screeching among the tombs, "Go tell other people what's happened to you." As though He can become an ambassador for Jesus Christ, all the hurt, all the past that's so wrong. But you have sound thought now. You have things you can say to people. It's so important that we know that we have a sound mind for the things that confront us and the world that's around us right now. And it's hard.
You know, every church age has its particular challenges. The Reformation, it was all about what saves you.
Your works or Christ's work? We recognize that there was a time that Christians so dealt with as if you affirm faith in me, you die, or your family's left destitute and courage will be required such as you never imagine to claim the name of Jesus Christ. And in our age, it's the sexual challenges so that as others have said, we're the new moral outlaws by saying, "I believe what the Bible says."
And it's so difficult that we have a common mistake, often even in the church, because it's fed by news and philosophies and college classrooms and entertainment world, that if you're struggling with something that you did not choose, you're not guilty.
It's okay.
As long as it was not your choice, that lifestyle, that decision the way you live, well, it wasn't your choice. So it's okay. And we with polite boldness have to say, humbly with the Scriptures, how far are you willing to take that?
If you did not choose it, it's okay. So if your child hits and lies, you didn't teach him that.
There was something about what the Psalmist said in sin, "Did my mother conceive me? This is my fallen nature." Well, hey, it's just your fallen nature, so go ahead and lie, hurt other people. It wasn't your choice. So it's okay.
What about the priest or the pastor who says, "I lust for children.
I don't even want to, but you know, I was just born this way. I just made this way."
Is it okay with you?
If we deal with the abuser who says, "It was just the way I was raised.
I don't know any other way.
Not my fault. It's what my dad did to me."
Do we say, "It's okay. You didn't choose it." That torturous childhood in which you are, you didn't choose it. So it's okay.
No. We are believers.
And what we believe is what the Holy Spirit is revealing to every single one of us is a broken, fallen nature, not to make us feel guilty, but to say, "There is hope for you. Greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world." So we repent of our struggles, and we seek Christ for strength. The one who promises us that he will give us gospel hope and gospel power, that we don't just say we're sorry, we say there is hope for the future. Tomorrow does not have to be like yesterday.
I can be changed. I can be renewed. And so I repent of what is not right in me. And by the way, that is every single one of us who have things that are not right in us that we did not choose. And we still say, "God forgive me and God change me by the power that is in your Son, Jesus Christ, indwelling me by the Spirit. So change me." But just one more word on this. I mean, we have a parents' conference later this week, and because of some dynamics in my extended family, Kathy and I were talking just to ourselves in the kitchen just a few days ago. And we said, "You know, as much as we see these struggles, here's what we know.
Virtually every parent does the best they can."
I mean, nobody holds up an infant and says, you know, "How can I mess up this baby's life?"
People do the best they can. But they can make wrong choices. They can have disordered thoughts. Every God He has given us, His Word, to say, "Here's what a sound mind is. Here are solid answers." And a parenting conference, it's not going to solve every problem. It won't have all the answers. But at least we say, "We are not left helpless.
Here's biblical instruction. Here's the sound mind of God that He has given to His people. So I'm not left to my own wisdom. I'm lightless my own devices. Here's how God is providing for us. There is hope for us, and we claim it." What is that peace and that dignity and that hope for the future look like? I think of the recent testimony of Lindsay Snyder, the CEO of In-N-Out Burger, the fast-food chain. She's only 37, but ranked number three among CEOs in this nation for product and culture of her company.
No one would have imagined it just a few years ago.
After the untimely death of her father, she struggled with alcohol and addictions and abusive relationships, three marriages trying to make it right. None of it did.
Finally she said, "I found the deep need in my heart can only be filled by Jesus and my identity in Him. Not what I've done. Not what I accomplish. My identity in Him." She writes, "I've learned so much through my brokenness, along with the ups and downs that come through the marriages that have been ruined. I've been the one to hurt people, and I've been hurt.
And I have gained insight and growth through both sides of the coin."
It says the mother of four, "Many churches are simply afraid to talk about spiritual warfare, but the battle over souls is being raged in the heavenlies."
It's our seeing with gospel glasses not being limited to the world that's just before our eyes, but seeing with the spiritual eyes of the Scriptures. What is actually going on? And God is revealing that to us so that we will turn and seek His help and believe that there is hope. Because listen, if you don't believe there can be a victory, you've already lost the battle.
And so we're being told He's here and He's active and He's powerful and He loves you and He enters your world.
But what if it's just all kind of ethereal, you know, spiritual, churchy stuff?
Well, for that reason the Savior says, "No, the physical realm is mine too."
You know what happens next? I think there's a synagogue ruler who comes to Jesus. Verse 23, He says, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come lay your hands on her so that she can be made well and live." Now put yourself in the position of the disciples.
Jesus.
Temple ruler coming to get your help.
This is opportunity.
I mean, we've been following this outcast rabbi for so long and now he's suddenly got credibility.
The synagogue ruler comes to Jesus and he asks for healing, help for his daughter. And what's better?
We know he can do it. Isn't this great? We'll get credibility and people will pay attention to us and we'll have significance. No more Motel 6.
No more eating out of dumpsters and wheat fields. I mean, this is our moment. And they encourage Jesus and Jesus begins to follow the temple ruler and then and then and then.
Verse 25, "There was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, suffered much under many physicians and spent all that she had and was no better, but rather getting worse."
All right, now you know.
That day, that age, that time, this was not just embarrassing.
This was declaring her impure.
You cannot worship God. The reality is there is some hidden sin in your life that is causing this affliction or everything would be right. You are to blame. You cannot worship with us. We believe what you are around us. And in her isolation, verse 28, she says, "If I touch even his garments, I will be made well." And immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus perceiving himself that power had gone out from him. Immediately turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my garments?"
And his disciples said, "You see the crowd pressing around you and you say, "Who touched me?" Translation, "Jesus, temple ruler, let's get going. What do you mean, who touched you?"
And Jesus, the creator of the universe, turns to find a woman outcast, ostracized, impure, and trembling and says, "Sister, be at peace."
Here it is again.
You can be at peace knowing that God is at work. Now I know a whole bunch of questions start coming to us.
You know, one is, why wait 12 years?
I mean, you could heal and touch. Why didn't you do that 12 years ago for her?
I don't know.
I've mentioned to you before, I heard a sermon some years ago by David Jeremiah and he said something in the moment I thought, "I'm not sure that's right."
But the more that I have experienced pastoring, the more that I think he is right. And here's what he said. He said, "If you're a believer and you knew everything that God does about your circumstances, what led to them, what's happening now, and the impact for eternity of how you will handle those circumstances, that nothing will enter your life that you yourself would not choose
if you knew everything that God does."
Now I really struggle with that.
But then I recognize this woman for all the pain, becomes a witness of the power of Christ for centuries to come. God has not abandoned you. He is working in and with and for you. I think of some of our wheelchair greeters in this sanctuary whose smiles will not be pushed from their faces as they testify of the glory and the goodness of this place despite the damage to their bodies.
And I say, "What's God doing?" But bringing glory to himself by those who understand God has purpose yet. And we say, "Oh, that's just your explanation for, you know, miracles because you haven't got one today."
Well, that's not true. I mean, we look at the Bible and we just have this perception. These miracles are just happening all the time, just one after another. There's miracles all over in the Bible. We don't have to believe that's happening. Well, you know, that's actually a false perception. Again, I've said to you before, the miracles of the Bible are happening in bursts of roughly 400 to 500 year cycles. And when Matthew in his geology explaining where Jesus comes talks about those 14 generations between the major eras of the Bible and the first major era where the first burst of miracles are occurring is where God is establishing his people through the patriarchs. I will create a people to love not because they deserve it. These are after all the most stiff-necked and ugly people in the world at this time.
And I'm going to save them. I can save the Jews. I can save anybody.
And Jesus is showing us to confirm that reality, the great outpouring of the miracles. And what's going to happen next when he delivers those people and shows them the law of a safe path which they can walk for all their lives, the next great series of miracles that accompany the Exodus. And then there's the next great burst when the kingdom begins to be established. And God is saying, "Not only have I sent a deliverer for you, not have I shown you the way to go through the law, but I'm going to establish a kingdom through you and it will ultimately become an eternal kingdom. And the next great burst of miracles, when is that? It's right here now. Jesus has come. And there's this burst of miracles to authenticate who he is. I believe there's going to be one more great burst. When do you think that might be? When he returns. Now, it will all be good, right? We are told at that point there will be miracles performed by charlatans and evil of such great magnitude that even the elect would believe if what?
If it were possible.
I mean, I'm recognizing the great spiritual battle is always going to be occurring. But what that means is I'm not just looking for a miracle every day. I recognize God is authenticating what he has needed in his word for his people, of his grace, for his law, for his son. But that doesn't mean I don't believe God is working now.
Listen, all things are still being conformed to good for those who love God and are called according to his praise. That's an even greater miracle. It's not local. It's the universe being conformed to the will of God for those who love him or are called according to his purpose. Does it work really?
You know I was pretty much in a lot of pain last week. And that pain kept me from going to Australia where I was supposed to be teaching over the last two weeks. And I was disappointed.
But in this last 10 days, there has been a major project of the church that we didn't know was coming. And I'm speaking in code for some of you in the room. If I had not been here, I cannot imagine trying to navigate what we have been navigating from the other side of the world. Could it be possible that the king of the universe knew what was best, knew what was right, and he was working far beyond my wisdom or even my desires?
So that as we think about what David Jeremiah would say, there's nothing that happens in life that you yourself would not choose if you knew all that God knows.
Protecting you from harm, maybe great spiritual harm that you may not even be aware of. Preparing you for future battles, using you to proclaim the reality of his power and his love so that even you look back in the rear view and say, "Look what God did. I had no idea what he was doing through the worst of things to bring about all things together for good."
What a blessing! What a matter of faith and what God is doing. And when I think about that, I think he's not just working on the physical plane, he's not just working on the spiritual plane, he is working for eternity.
His vision is from eternal past to eternal future. And he is orchestrating all of that. So you recognize this eternal realm is just kind of unveiled for us as the woman is healed and Jesus goes on to Jairus' house, the temple synagogue ruler. Verse 35 and 36, "But as they are going, word comes, your daughter is dead.
Why trouble the teacher any further?"
But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, "Don't fear, believe."
And of course the people didn't believe, they laughed when Jesus said, "The child is not dead, but sleeping."
He's not even there yet. How he gets that diagnosis is he knows who he is and what he can do. Verse 41, "Taking her by the hand, he said to her, "T'lethakumi," which means little girl, "I say to you, arise."
And immediately the girl got up and began walking for she was 12 years of age and they were immediately overcome with amazement. And Jesus said, verse 40, "Give her something to eat."
She's whole again and they're amazed, but they're at peace now that our daughter's back.
God is doing amazing things.
And even as that girl is awakened in the language of the current time, some of us just need to get woke again. Just wake up. There is more than the world that is before your eyes. Beyond your math and beyond your test tube. There is a spirituality deep down in your heart. You know it.
And when you know it, you just see things differently. I think of New Orleans Saints linebacker, Demario Davis, who some of you know wore a headband under his helmet a few weeks ago in a game that said, "Man of God, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, man of God."
And was fined $7,000 for breaking the NFL dress code for not patriotic, not charitable, not political messages. So how did he respond with his gospel glasses on? Seeing beyond the immediate.
He said, "Nobody wants to lose money, but I think any time the conversation about God is brought up, especially in these times, it is always positive. If he can get glory from it, he is in control of the whole situation. God and I are still good."
I love it.
It's not just resentment. It's not to, "Oh, we're just victims of our times." It's the powerful belief that all the realms are in Christ's power. He is over the spiritual. He is over the physical. And in the strange conflation of those reality, he is moving the eternal.
And when we believe that, we go through trial and difficulty and things we can't explain and we say, "This is my father's world.
And to my listening ears, all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. My God, is it work? I believe it. And it gives me hope to keep walking and keep moving through the most awful things when I put on my gospel glasses and I see what God is teaching me by the reality of the realm control of his son."
So this past week, Kathy and I got a letter from an estranged family member asking for money. Never done that in recent years.
And I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, no.
I just last week preached on the Sermon on the Mount.
If somebody takes your cloak, give him your coat also. Oh, this is going to cost me money."
And so all my siblings began to work and, you know, what can we do with all the proper caveats and conditions to make this person responsible? And he's promised to pay us back before he's never done it. So what do we do for his responsible life, for his spiritual good, for the eternal purposes of God? And while we're having this great conversation, my mom enters and says, "I'll pay it."
She doesn't have the money that we do. She's without her husband. She lives virtually at a poverty level. She's for his soul's sake with eternal perspective.
Well, you might guess we decided we would do it.
May he take advantage of us? Of course.
But we've put on eternal lenses what is working all things for good together for his soul.
God teach us, you've not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. Make us proclaimers for this king of the realms, we pray, in Jesus' name. Father, so work. We so much need to be reminded of what at one level we already know. Jesus is Lord. But it's not large picture. It's the intimacy of a God who enters our reality, the physical, the spiritual, the eternal, and says, "I am infinite in power and intimate in heart."
For that God we turn, forgive us our sin, lead us in your ways, and help us proclaim your love for Christ's sake. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.