Let’s Get Engaged
Pt. 2 - When Pigs Fly
Video (It’s All About Me – available at Sermonspice.com)
Last week I began a series called “Let’s Get Engaged”. This series deals with the last step in the Passion Process which is to engage or get our hands out. We talked about assuming the position. In our mandate to get engaged, I mentioned to you that we have to fill our position. God is looking for us to stand in the gap, but too often we are out of position. Our position is to stand between the living and the dead and stop the plague. It is not to huddle up with the living and try to survive or to celebrate the fact that sin is killing those around us. We have a mandate to get out and to reach out.
Text: Mark 5:1-17
1And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. 2And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, 3Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: 4Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. 5And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. 6But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, 7And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. 8For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. 9And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. 10And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. 11Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 12And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. 13And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. 14And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. 15And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 16And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the
swine. 17And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.
I want to continue the idea of Let’s Get Engaged by talking to you on the subject of “When Pigs Fly”.
This is a very familiar passage of Scripture. However, I want to look at it from a little different angle as it relates to us becoming engaged.
1. Jesus was willing to go places and deal with people that others would avoid.
The Gadarenes was a place that would have been unclean for Jews. Filled with tombs and pigs. It was part of the region actually shunned by Jews because of its condition and yet Jesus rather than taking the boat and landing in a more acceptable, clean location pulls up next to the cemetery and immediately deals with a man that no one else could or would deal with. Rather than run from him, ignore him, ridicule him, or berate him Jesus simply restores him.
That is our mandate. We must be willing to go where others are afraid or unwilling to go. We must be willing to touch people that others are unwilling to touch. We must be willing to love people that others are unwilling to love.
I don’t come into contact with anyone who looks or acts like this man. Really? You don’t have someone at your job who is ignored by everyone else. You don’t have someone in your neighborhood that no one else will talk to? You don’t have someone at your school who everyone else avoids at all cost? You don’t know someone who is uncontrollable and the punch line of every joke? You don’t know someone whose life doesn’t quite measure up to everyone else’s and therefore finds themselves considered a reject? They eat alone, they work alone, and they cry alone, they live alone.
We all know someone who lives in the cemetery. I know they live in a nice well kept house, but the truth is they are living in a cemetery. Day in and day out you contact people who are living in the middle of the dead. They are living with dead memories, dead dreams, dead love, and dead hopes. That is why they cut themselves! Some with words some with knives. They, like this man, are crying. They have just learned to hide it better than he did. They have learned to continue the charade of a normal life. And yet, they are dying daily.
2. There should be a reaction when people contact the Jesus in us.
Jesus is minding his own business. Jesus’ office hasn’t been contacted for an appointment. No one has made reservations. Jesus’ feet had barely hit solid ground and a reaction occurs. The evil in him responds to the holiness of Jesus. There was a reaction. It was inevitable. It was normal. It seems that everywhere Jesus went He always caused one of two reactions: a riot or a revival. He was so full of power, love, and grace that people couldn’t help but to respond!
Where has Jesus been lately? Wal-Mart, the bank, Sonic, Blockbuster, Chilis, Anywhere you have gone. He resides in you. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is in you. What reaction have you caused? There should be a reaction! Dead folks, bound folks, uncontrolled folks, desperate folks, depressed folks, addicted folks, broken folks shouldn’t be able to come into the same room with us and not react.
Have you caused a riot or a revival lately? My concern is that we cause no reaction whatsoever! We are so powerless that they contact us messed up and remain messed up! Get engaged! We are ignored. Overlooked. No reaction and no response! In Acts the Bible says that people could tell the disciples had been with Jesus. They caused a reaction. In fact in Acts 12:18 Peter it says that he caused no small disturbance. Do we cause any disturbance at all? No more small disturbances! This guy saw Jesus from a distance and went out of his way to get to Him. That should be what happens to us. There should be something about us that causes people to search us out. People should be going out of their way to find us!
President Woodrow Wilson told this story. He said: "I was in a very common place, I was sitting in a barber chair, when I became aware that a personality had entered the room. A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself -- to have his hair cut and sat in the chair next to me. Every word the man uttered showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him. And before I got through with what was being done for me, I was aware that I had attended an evangelistic service.
Because Mr. D.L. Moody was in that chair.
I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular effect that his visit had brought upon the barbershop. They didn’t know his name but they knew that something had elevated their thoughts and I felt that I left that place as I should have left the place of worship.
3. The day pigs flew is the day that we found out that we care more about pigs than we do people!
Notice if you will that the people in this area have nothing to do with this man while he is possessed. At best they only deal with him to chain him. They don’t run to meet Jesus to ask Him to help Him. In Mark 8, a whole village comes to Jesus and asks Him to heal a blind man. But in this account no one bothers to pray for Jesus to help this poor man. In fact, they don’t pray at all until the man has been set free and then their prayer is for Jesus to leave. The bottom line is that they were more concerned about their pigs than they were about this man. The livelihood meant more to them than the demise of this man. They cry over their pigs, but don’t shed any tears for this man. They are saddened by the loss of their profit, but have shown no compassion or care for a crazy man. They cry out because there is a pig funeral but never say a word about the man who is living in a constant funeral!
What I believe the Lord has said to me is this: We can’t help others who are possessed if we are possessed with possessions. If we become so consumed with the new car, the new house, the new clothes we will have a tendency to close our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to those around us that are in terrible, heart breaking, and demented situations. As long as they don’t trouble us we are OK. Jesus forces us to attend to the hurting!
Hear me this morning. Too many of us are so concerned about material things that we are no longer concerned about people! If we have to choose between a cup of coffee at Starbucks and feeding an orphan we will choose the coffee. If we have to choose between driving a car with 70,000 miles on it or getting a brand new one to stay up with our neighbors then we will do that even if it means we can’t tithe, can’t support missions, can’t feed someone who is hungry. If we have to work 3 or 4 jobs or ungodly numbers of overtime hours to keep up or lifestyle until we no longer have time to volunteer at the church, the homeless shelter, or watch our children play baseball then we will make the trade! Why because we care more about pigs than people. That is why Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “19“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. 20Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. 21It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”
And then He goes on to say in verse 24-25, “You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both. If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.”
We desperately need Jesus’ compassion to fill our hearts again. We need to break the materialism and consumerism that has us bound so that we can be freed to free others.
A young woman was brutally attacked as she returned to her apartment late one night. She screamed and shrieked as she fought for her life, yelling until she was hoarse -- for thirty minutes -- as she was beaten and abused. Thirty-eight people watched the half-hour episode in rapt fascination from their windows. Not one so much as walked over to the telephone and called the police. She died that night as thirty-eight witnesses stared in silence. Pig lovers!
Riding on a subway, a seventeen- year-old young man was quietly minding his own business when he was stabbed repeatedly in the stomach by attackers. Eleven riders watched the stabbing, but none came to assist the young man. Even after the thugs had fled and the train had pulled out of the station and he lay there in a pool of his own blood, not one of the eleven came to his side. Pig lovers!
A lady in New York City, while shopping on Fifth Avenue in busy Manhattan, tripped and broke her leg. Dazed, anguished, and in shock, she called out for help. Not for two minutes. Not for twenty minutes. But for forty minutes, as shoppers and business executives, students and merchants walked around her and stepped over her, completely ignoring her cries. After literally hundreds had passed by, a cab driver finally pulled over, hauled her into his taxi, and took her to a local hospital.
We sit here in disbelief, shake our heads, and think how sad, but how many of us are so busy with our pigs that we step over those we have been called to help. How many of us are so consumed by our obsession with the new car, the new house, the clothes that we fail to see those around us that are helpless, hopeless, and in need of the power that resides in us?
I want you to ask yourself some tough questions this morning. Are you more concerned about career than you are people who are bound? Are you more moved by new jeans than you are by junkies that have no hope? Where is your treasure? Go home get your checkbook out and follow the path of your money to the path of your heart. Your checkbook will reveal where your heart is. Pigs or people?
