Before And After

Before and after!

From our cardboard testimonies you have seen the message of what a person’s life was like before Jesus and what it is like after Jesus comes into their life. Maybe you need Jesus to make a difference in your life today!

Let’s look at the story of a man who experienced a dramatic life change because of Jesus. Please turn to Luke 8:26-29. Please stand in honor of the reading of the Word of God. READ

I want to concentrate on the changes Jesus brought to this man’s life and what changes Jesus can bring to yours.

I. Jesus changed where he lived

The first change Jesus brought to this man’s life is where he lived.

A. He lived in the tombs

Verse 27 tells us this man lived in the tombs. Luke emphasizes that for a long time this man had not lived in a house. Historians are not sure if this tomb was a cave like structure or a stone dwelling, but it had to be a disgusting place. It was the place where someone had been placed after they died. He either moved the bones out or scooted them over. Talk about a place that needed an extreme home makeover this was it!

Why would this man live in the tomb? For shelter. It became his home.

Verse 29 tells us that the demons that had possessed his body had driven him into this solitary place. This is what his life was before Jesus. He was separated from family and friends and had no comforts of home.

B. Jesus sent him home

Look at verse 39 - After Jesus casted the demons out of him, Jesus told the man to go home. Mark’s account of the story adds the words “go home to your family”.

Home – according to Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “there is not place like home”! I tried to imagine the happy reunion this man must have experienced going home. What an incredible experience that must have been for him!

For some of us in this room, home is where the heart is. Home stirs warm feelings of love and family. However, for others of you home is not the perfect place of love and warmth. Maybe you are not living in the graveyard like this man was, but your marriage feels just as dead. Maybe you feel just as separated and alone as this man was living inside your own house. I want you to experience the change that Jesus can bring to your life. Not just the change of salvation, but the change of a quality of life and a happy home.

II. Jesus changed his behavior and mind

The second change Jesus brought to this man was a change in his behavior and mind.

A. He was a wild man

In verse 29 the text tells us that after the demon had seized him he had broken chains. Historians believe while he tried living in his hometown he had become wild and incorrigible. None of the chains, handcuffs, shackles or fetters was able to control him. The demons in him gave to him superhuman strength and he broke them off.

Turn to Mark’s account and notice that the last part of verse 4 says “no one was strong enough to subdue him”. The word in the NIV “subdue” can also be translated “tame”. Society had tried to control and tame him through chains and shackles; Jesus controlled him through deliverance.

Another indication of his abnormal behavior according to Mark 5:5 it says “he would cut himself with stones”. Scholars do not know if he did this because of the demons in him or because of the suffering he experienced because of the demons. Either way, he had scars all over his arms and legs and blood stains on his clothes.

B. Jesus tamed the savage beast

Mark’s account in verse 6 the man is identified as running or ran to Jesus when He got out of the boat. I feel the text is making a contrast to his running there and how he was after Jesus cast the demons out in verse 15 “sitting at the feet of Jesus” calm and peaceful.

In addition to sitting verse 15 tells us he was in his right mind. No longer was he a wild man naked and running all over the cemetery trying to scare people and trying to cut himself.

Do you ever feel like a wild man or wild woman losing your mind? Maybe the stress and busyness of your life has put you at such a horrid pace and it is time to slow down and focus on the things of God.

III. Jesus changed his clothes

The third change God brought to this man was a change in his clothes.